Did you know that next year, the Department of Health will require all nursing staff to revalidate their registration with the Nursing and Midwifery Council, every three years, in order for them to be able to practice?

For Absolute Healthcare, this is of paramount importance as our Director of Care, Louise Jeffrey, is a Registered Nurse.

All nursing staff regardless of their specific line of work will be required to do the following in order to maintain their registration: 450 practice hours, 35 hours of continuing professional development, 5 pieces of practice-related feedback, 5 written reflective accounts, 1 reflective discussion with an NMC registrant, a health and character declaration, evidence of professional indemnity insurance.

UK-wide revalidation for nurses and midwives has come about because of a review into failings at the former Mid Staffordshire NHS Foundation Trust and a similar system is already in place for doctors.

For many home care companies it will not have a major impact, but as all of Absolute Healthcare’s work is overseen by a registered nurse, including continuous professional development for our carers, and we take great pride in the nursing training we provide to our staff, we will be rigorously working to achieve revalidation in the spring of 2016.

Ultimately these measures are in place for the safety of patients in hospitals, care homes and those receiving nursing care at home and we welcome implementation of revalidation, despite it being a very time consuming measure for small organisations like us!

If you are interested in finding out more about the nurse revalidation process, more information can be found on this website: https://rcnrevalidation.wordpress.com/