Student nurses can ‘opt’ to see out their studies by carrying out their final six months of their course as a paid clinical placement to help in the battle against Covid-19.
The plans were confirmed in a joint statement issued by the Nursing and Midwifery Council, the UK’s chief nursing officers, the Council of Deans of Health and unions.
The legislation would give the NMC new powers to “temporarily register fit, proper and suitably experienced persons” and is due to be ready at the end of March.
The NMC will use this to bring in retired and student nurses, midwives and nursing associates to help the NHS combat the upcoming peak of coronavirus infections.
All those brought in temporarily will not have to pay registration fees and staff will be provided with cover for clinical negligence when providing care.
The legislation also includes powers to provide indemnity coverage for those temporarily brought it.
The draft which has been presented to parliament will be debated and amended over the next few days before the measures are passed.
Under the temporary amendment some of the strict requirements in place to register nursing professionals by the NMC will be lifted to speed up the process.
As many of the student nurses to be brought in have not yet finished their training, the most significant requirement to be lifted is that the applicant must hold an approved qualification.
Donna Kinnair, RCN Chief Executive and General Secretary commented “We have been clear that students in the last six months of their degree must be free to choose to work.”
With the new legislation, the council can register nurses in groups to enable nursing professionals to enter the register as a group.
Every person who has been temporarily brought in will have an annotation on their registration to note that they were added under emergency regulations.
Read the full article in the Nursing Times