Those behind a pioneering training programme for general practice nurses (GPNs) are striving to create a deanery for the profession, in a bid to remove the ‘ad hoc nature’ of recruitment and education of nurses in primary care.
And one day, they hope the need for standardised GPN training will be written into the GP contract.
The GPN Foundation School in Staffordshire launched in 2023 to help standardise training and move away from a ‘pick and mix’ of education that many GPNs face.
An independent evaluation carried out by the Queen’s Nursing Institute (QNI) found the project was ‘driving change’ and helping to develop a ‘national culture’ for the training and education of the profession.
The school’s director and strategic nurse lead Rachel Viggars, and training programme lead Gill Boast, have always set out for the scheme to become national one day and are now pushing for the creation of a GPN deanery that would manage and standardise postgraduate education for the profession.
Having a deanery would provide a ‘top-down approach’ and a ‘formal structure and responsibility’ for the education and training of GPNs, Ms Viggars told Nursing in Practice.
‘I would see the deanery as being the top of the pyramid ensuring standards and requirements are set with regional delivery of schools like ours,’ she said.
‘Ultimately all nurses wanting a career as a GPN would need to come through this pathway the same way the GPs have to go through their training.’
She believed having a deanery would ‘remove the ad hoc nature of GPN recruitment and education and essentially develop a mainstream and sustainable training pathway’.
‘It would enable the work of the Staffordshire GPN Foundation School to grow regionally and nationally whilst ensuring standards and competency,’ said Ms Viggars.
Ms Viggars believes a deanery ‘is the only way to build a sustainable primary care nursing workforce fit for the future’.
The 12-month GPN Foundation School in Staffordshire, designed for both newly registered nurses and those new to general practice nursing, began as a pilot in September 2023 and has recently launched its second cohort.
Each trainee has a funded place on the Fundamentals of General Practice Nursing university course and attends the GPN school for one session a week.
The school curriculum is focused on the core capability and career framework and includes a bespoke leadership programme, wellbeing, resilience, clinical supervision, peer support and clinical topics.
The QNI’s recent evaluation report found the school provided ‘robust support and a structured pathway for developing new GPNs, reducing isolation, and establishing a valuable network’ and that it was seen as a ‘vital contributor’ to the primary care workforce.
When asked what the next steps were to take the project to a national scale, Ms Viggars said her team was having conversations with other areas around how they can replicate what is being done in Staffordshire.
And she stressed the importance of securing backing from key stakeholders such as NHS England to take the school to the next level.
‘We need that bravery now to take this to the next level and do something massive,’ said Ms Viggars.
‘This will have an impact across the entire country. The impact on our patients will be huge.’
She believed the appetite was there from nurses wanting to work in general practice, noting that her team had seen 70 applicants for the school in Staffordshire last year.
Going further, she said a future ambition and ‘big aim’ would be to have a line written into the GP contract which set out the training needs of GPNs.
Ms Boast, who leads the school’s training programme, said the QNI’s evaluation had proven the need for ‘consistency’ in general practice nurse education, which she said is not currently available elsewhere.
‘What we’ve shown is we can give a pipeline of general practice nurses for the future, and that’s really vital for the agenda that’s coming through for health prevention and health promotion. The general practice nurse role fits perfectly into that,’ she told Nursing in Practice.
She echoed that a having a deanery for the profession would be a logical and important next step.
‘There needs to be a proper deanery established for nursing, because they have it for the doctors,’ added Ms Boast.
‘It just needs to be a primary care deanery, in the truest sense, covering all the elements.’
NHS England was contacted for comment.
