Health and science

Nursing associate

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Providing care for people of all ages and from different backgrounds, cultures and beliefs.

Summary

This is a new occupation introduced into the health and care workforce to bridge the gap between health and care assistants and registered nurses. Nursing associate is a stand-alone role that will also provide a progression route into graduate level nursing. It’s intended that the role will enable registered nurses to focus on more complex clinical duties. Nursing associates work in the public, independent and voluntary sectors and it is a statutorily regulated profession. The standards for proficiency are set by the Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC). Successful completion of this apprenticeship will meet the education requirements for registration with the NMC. This standard covers the NMC Standards for Proficiency and Annexes A & B for nursing associates (October 2018).

The broad purpose of the occupation is to provide care for people of all ages and from different backgrounds, cultures and beliefs. Nursing associates may provide care for people who have mental, physical, cognitive and behavioural care needs. They may provide care for people in their own home, in the community or hospital or in any health care settings where their needs are supported and managed. Nursing associates work in the context of continual change, challenging environments, different models of care delivery, shifting demographics, innovation and rapidly evolving technologies. Increasing integration of health and social care services will require nursing associates to play an active role in multidisciplinary teams.

Nursing associates contribute to the promotion of health, health protection and the prevention of ill health. They do this by empowering people and communities to exercise choice, take control of their own health decisions and behaviours and by supporting people to manage their own care where possible. In their daily work, an employee in this occupation interacts with a variety of service users, families and carers, and with an extensive range of health and care professionals and other agencies including social services, police, probation, prisons, housing, education, language interpreters and third sector agencies. They might be working in a health, social care or public health provider and may work various shift patterns which enable care to be provided 24 hours per day, seven days per week, 365 days of the year. This is a new role and it is expected that nursing associates will become a key part of the team to meet the integrated health and care needs of patients and service users.

An employee in this occupation will be responsible for providing care for people of all ages and from different backgrounds, cultures and beliefs. They must be able to care for people in their own home, in the community or hospital or in any care settings where their needs are supported and managed. All nursing associates will work as part of a team but on a day to day basis they may be working alone when seeing people in their own homes or in the community. They work in the context of continual change, challenging environments, different models of care delivery, an older and more diverse population, innovation and rapidly evolving technologies. Increasing integration of health and social care services will require nursing associates to negotiate boundaries and play an important role in multidisciplinary teams. The confidence to apply knowledge and skills and provide evidence based, direct nursing care therefore lies at the centre of all nursing associate practice.

Nursing associates must be emotionally intelligent and resilient individuals, able to manage their own personal health and well-being, recognise boundaries of their practice and know when and how to access support.

Typical job titles include

Knowledge, skills and behaviours (KSBs)

• Knowledge
• Skills
• Behaviours