'Closing the gap'--a partnership approach to community care education for long term conditions.

Aim: The aim of the project/evaluation was to establish a Community of Practice (CoP) with the purpose of enhancing the skills of the workforce and developing learning resources to improve service delivery for people with long-term conditions.

Background: International and national policy drivers espousing new community-based inter-agency models of delivery have led to rapid transformation of services for people with long-term conditions. Many in the workforce lack the skills required to respond to the increased acuity of patients or function within a fully integrated, inter-agency service.

Being reasonable: supporting disabled nursing students in practice.

Aim: To analyse recurring adjustments made in practice settings and the support strategies put in place to enable disabled students to achieve the levels of proficiency required on pre-registration nursing programmes.

Background: Legislative and regulatory changes in the UK require higher education institutions to make reasonable adjustments for disabled students whose needs must be considered and adjustments made before their programmes of study begin. The student practice learning advisor's (SPLA) primary role is to support disabled students and to operationalise recommended adjustments in practice.

Evaluation study to ascertain the impact of the clinical academic coaching role for enhancing student learning experience within a clinical masters education programme.

Aim: To explore the appropriateness of clinical academic coaching role as a tool for enhancing student learning and the development of advanced academic and clinical practice skills for nurses.

Background: Coaching involves a relationship between individuals characterised by analyzing and communicating mutually understood objectives and motivating others. Coaching is beneficial for developing those entering new positions with higher level responsibilities.

Achieving fitness to practice: Contributing to public and patient protection in nurse education.

Aim: To determine the impact of reforms to fitness to practice procedures, within preparatory programmes for nurses and midwives, and the implications for public and patient protection.

Background: Professional regulation has seen considerable reform across all health care professions. Higher Education Institutions providing preparatory programmes are required to demonstrate procedures which ensure students are of good health and character in order to ensure public safety.

User participation in mental health nurse decision-making: a co-operative enquiry.

Aim: This paper is a report of a study to encourage participants to work together to identify strategies for increasing user participation in clinical decisions and to evaluate the value of co-operative inquiry as a vehicle for supporting learning in practice.

Background: Service user participation in the clinical practice decisions of mental health nurses is considered essential for good practice. Methods need to be found which enable opportunities for shared learning, facilitate practice development and empower service users.

A socially inclusive approach to user participation in higher education.

Aim: This paper is a report of a study to evaluate the development of an innovative Service User Academic post in mental health nursing in relation to student learning and good employment practice in terms of social inclusion.

Background: Institutions providing professional mental health education are usually expected to demonstrate user involvement in the design, delivery and evaluation of their educational programmes to ensure that user voices are central to the development of clinical practice. Involvement can take many forms but not everyone values user knowledge as equal to other sources of knowledge.