The report indicates that the increase in District Nurse student numbers seen in recent years has slowed down. Given the numbers who retire from the service annually, the QNI is concerned that this will represent a major challenge to current and future recruitment efforts to District Nursing teams.
Headline findings:
- There were 565 new entrants to the SPQ – District Nurse programme in 2015/16
- 517 District Nurse Specialist Practitioners qualified in 2016, compared to 479 in 2015 and 382 in 2014.
- 554 new students were enrolled in the academic year 2016/17
- 40 universities responded to the survey and of these, two did not run the programme and one did not intend to offer it in future.
- 82% of universities had mapped their programmes to the QNI/QNIS Voluntary Standards for District Nurse Education and Practice (2015)
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