We are pleased to announce our 6 trainees who came into post on Monday 28th September 2020.
Georgina Rowley – Madeley Practice
Jodie Woolley – Wolstanton Medical Practice
Laura Fitzjohn – Loomer Medical
Chelsea Johnson -Edwards – Werrington Village Surgery
Katie O’Reilly – Tunstall Primary Care
Tamika Wilson – Furlong Medical Centre
NSGPF have highlighted the emerging concern with regards to a shortage of GPNs. Following a workforce survey undertaken by NSGPF, it was apparent that we needed to act now to address the increasing vacancies. It was noted that our member practices, often are not in a position to train up new GPNs to the standard required and need “ready to go” GPNs. This proves to be a barrier for individual practices to employ inexperienced nurses to their teams. In addition to this, the workforce survey highlighted an increasing number of GPNs who are due to retire in the next 1-3 years. NSGPF value the role of the GPN within our member practices. GPNs have a vast skill set and knowledge across all domains of General Practice and NSGPF felt that we could redesign the model to address the GPN shortfall. We have been fortunate and are grateful to gain the support from the TECs group, who are providing us with equipment to support digital transformation of the GPN role ensuring that our new GPNs are digitally ready and have the skills to practice competently in this new Covid / post covid era.
This scheme is the first of its kind in our area and will run in a very similar way to the GP Training scheme. We have successfully recruited 6 nurses, all of very high standard and we hope they will be exemplar nurses of the future. 3 are newly qualified nurses, and 3 have qualified within the last 3 years. We had 82 applicants, demonstrating the desire of nurses to come into General Practice.
With the forthcoming shortages of GPNs across North Staffordshire GP Federation practices this project is designed to share expertise and develop GPNs fit for the future, supporting our member practices to ensure competent GPNs who can be released into the local workforce.
Our GPN trainees will receive an excellent experience ensuring access to support and supervision for a varied and vibrant 12 months of learning. They will be placed in training practices with a supervisor and will undertake the Fundamentals in General Practice Nursing course at Keele University. After the 12 months we will have 6 qualified ‘ready to go’ GPNs who will be able to apply for positions in any of our member practices who hold vacancies.