PROGRAMMES
Preceptorships
If you are interested or would like to enrol, please contact [email protected].
Lancashire & South Cumbria Primary Care Training Hub are pleased to announce that they have been awarded the Gold Standard Quality Mark for Preceptorship from February 2024. This is a prestigious award that can be shared with all practices who engage in the preceptorship programme. If your practice would like to take part, please contact us.
What is Preceptorship?
The purpose of preceptorship is to provide support, guidance and development for all newly registered and new to practice practitioners to build confidence and competence as they transition from student to autonomous professional or from a previous sector into primary care (NHSE “National Preceptorship Project for Nursing” – June 2022)
The NHSE Long Term Workforce Plan (NHSE 2023) recognises that good quality preceptorship is one of the key principles in recruitment, integration and transitional roles and staff retention, with its “train, retain, reform” strategic challenges.
The plan states that ‘scaling of NHS care delivered in the community requires rapid expansion of the necessary workforce and the development of more flexible and integrated teams,’ which encourages practices to fully support preceptorship in the integration of AHP roles, finding new ways of working in Primary Care areas.
The Plan’s aim to increase training places for Allied Health Professions (AHPs) and other professional groups, indicates that a robust preceptorship support should be in place once they join Primary Care, to ensure they experience a positive environment and welcoming culture.
Investment in preceptorship provides triple returns: it improves retention, it increases skills and confidence, and it produces economic value (NHSE, 2022). It also ensures patient safety, stability and satisfaction with their local Primary Care services.
Preceptorship is not a replacement for basic induction or mandatory training. It involves commitment from the Practice, utilising experienced Practitioners in preceptorship roles for the first 6-12 months of new-to-practice practitioners commencing employment.
The National Preceptorship Framework programme is intended for all Trusts and organisations to support newly qualified and new-to-practice practitioners. It is expected that the basic National Preceptorship core standards are to have been achieved by September 2023, with organisations aiming for the gold standards thereafter.
In order for the Lancashire and South Cumbria Primary Care Training Hub to effectively support preceptorship in the General Practices in the area, we have identified from a scoping exercise that there is a need for promotion of preceptorship in practice and LSCTH are endeavouring to provide the support required for implementation.
References:
NHSE Ten Point Action Plan for General Practice Nursing (2017)
Upcoming Events
Webinars
These webinars include:
- Introduction to the L&SC PCTH Legacy Mentor
- National Preceptorship Programme and Principles
- Information about the Preceptorship Programme
- Preceptorship Programme for Preceptees
- Development and training of Preceptors
- Questions and answers
Workshops
The workshop will be led by Lancashire & South Cumbria Primary Care’s Legacy Mentor and will be the starting point for GPNs and AHPs who are interested in supporting preceptorship within their practice
The Workshop Offers:
- an in-depth look at the national preceptorship programme
- an explanation of the roles, responsibilities and skills of the preceptor
- guidance on how preceptors can support preceptees in practice
- an explanation on how to complete the required documentation
- the development of peer preceptorship support networks
Meet the Team
Our aim is to have good quality and nationally standardised preceptorship in place for any New to Practice practitioners throughout all our localities.
We are developing the way forward for Preceptorship within General Practice.
Victoria Johnston
Legacy Mentor
Victoria Johnston is an Advanced Clinical Practitioner with 35 years of nursing experience in different NHS settings which include emergency nursing, school nursing (Children Looked-After), some management and teaching experiences, and more latterly working in Primary Care, starting as Practice Nurse at a North West surgery in 2008 and ultimately transferring her previously used ED advanced nursing skills to ACP level. She maintains a humble and compassionate approach to nursing, and supporting her colleagues of all disciplines has been a key thread throughout her nursing career.
Her role as Legacy Mentor with the Lancashire and South Cumbria Primary Care Training Hub is a new role to our area, the idea being to provide support to professionals new to general practice or transitioning from other areas into general practice. As the area is such a large patch to cover, her role initially is to promote and lead on the development and implementation of preceptorship across the whole area, supported by Yvonne, Ann, Kay and other members of the L&SC PCTH.
Yvonne Thomson
Preceptorship Lead
A Registered General Nurse, who has completed the ILM Coaching qualification with a multi-faceted career spanning over nearly 30 years. Experience has been gained within the Armed Forces and the NHS across secondary care, community, and Primary Care. Strategic and operational leadership, management, education, service development and re design, alongside project management expertise has been achieved throughout my career. Passionate about educational and career development and really enjoys working with people to develop their own skills and knowledge within a coaching and mentoring ethos.
Ann Neville
Ann Neville, Practice Manager and Training Hub Lead (Pennine)
Ann joined Darwen Healthcare in 2013. She has over 15 years’ experience of working within the NHS, having previously worked for Cancer Services and East Lancashire Hospice. Ann is responsible for leading the practices strategic development and overseeing the day to day running of the practice. She is committed to the provision of high-quality health and care services that are compassionate, inclusive and constantly improving and being a part of the Patient Participation Group and actively listening to patient feedback is an important factor to achieving this goal.
Kay Turner
Admin Support
Highly qualified and experienced in all aspects of administration, recruitment, human resources and leadership, spanning over more than 40 years. Kay’s previous roles include Personal Legal Secretary; Director and Business owner of a Management Consultancy; Headteacher’s Personal Assistant; Human Resources Manager; Office Manager and Business Owner of a small hand-made jewellery organisation. Having supported learners in an educational setting for over 23 years, supporting career development within the NHS has allowed Kay to continue to support the next generation workforce. Enthusiastic about supporting others to achieve their potential Kay has a zest for learning and embraces new ideas and concepts.
More about Preceptorships:
For The Practice
The Lancashire & South Cumbria Primary Care Training hub has a Legacy Mentor/Preceptorship Lead who can support individual practices with their preceptorship plan. Please contact [email protected] for more details, or any of the links to the preceptorship team on this page.
Here we have put together the links you may need to start your preceptorship policy, a guide to what is expected from practices, and the allocated timeframes recommended for new professionals to have in their preceptorship period
For The Preceptor
Please find some links about preceptorship below, and the link to the e-learning for health on-line preceptorship package.
Please enrol onto our Preceptor Workshops via this link: [email protected], and look out for the workshop dates advertised on our weekly bulletins.
For The Preceptee
Once you have applied for the L&SC PCTH preceptorship programme (via this link: [email protected]) you will receive a copy of our comprehensive e-handbook to work through with your preceptor.
Here you will find links to the national preceptorship programme, relevant e-learning and some information about what the GPN New to Practice Fundamentals and Fellowship courses entail, and also courses such as:
PgC Paramedic First Contact Practitioner: Practice Development – University of Cumbria
We have also put the links to the LSCPCTH timetable onto this page so that GPNs and paramedics can book the Immunisation and Vaccinations, Zoladex injections, Cytology for New Sample Takers, Venepuncture and Understanding Blood Tests courses for you to access the training schedules.