A "substantial minority" of nurse educators lack up-to-date clinical experience, the head of a leading university health department claimed this week.
The head, who refused to be named, suggested that up to half the nurse teaching staff in the department were clinically not up-to-speed and this led to "a hell of a credibility gap."
Sally Thomson, assistant director of education at the Royal College of Nursing, agreed that some nurse teachers had lost clinical experience. "To say it's not a problem would be wrong," she said. "They are supposed to spend 25 per cent of their time in practice. At the moment they don't. We have some very creative systems in place looking to change this."
The move to universities had distanced the nurse teacher from the ward. They spent a lot of time researching, as well as teaching classes of more than 100 students.
Soapbox, Letters, pages 17-18