RPELform
Recognition of Prior Learning (Theory and Practice) for the Pre-Registration Post-Graduate Diploma in Nursing with Registration as an Adult, Children’s or Mental Health Nurse
Name
UCAS No or King’s Application no
1st Degree BSc Business Healthcare Management
Date of Selection Day attended: 17.09.2015 – 24.04.2018
Programme applied for: PGip Adult Nursing
The Nursing and Midwifery Council Permit Recognition of prior learning, RP(E)L, against any part of the programme where the applicant is able to demonstrate relevant prior learning to the satisfaction of the approved educational institution (NMC, 2004).
Pre-registration nursing programmes should normally be no less than 3 years. However, the use of RP(E)L permits us to offer a programme of 2 years duration to those applicants who can show evidence of prior learning relevant to the programme.
In order for us assess your prior learning, please complete the following portfolio of evidence showing how you have undertaken this prior learning via previous theoretical and / or experiential learning.
The form should be typed and submitted as a word document.
Each section should be completed and the portfolio returned with the completed Verification of hours form via the King’s Apply Admissions Portal.
Section 1
Demonstrate Knowledge & Understanding of:
• Biological and physiological sciences
• Social and behavioural science
• Ethics, law and the humanities
• Health promotion
To do this-
Identify learning that you have undertaken in each of these areas and how you have applied that learning during your healthcare related experience (total 500 words)
Section 2
Intellectual Skills, demonstrate ability to:
• articulate and justify the decisions you make and the problem solving processes you use
• select and apply knowledge and skills to complex and unexpected situations
• evaluate research findings
• gather and evaluate information from a variety of sources
To do this –
1. Write a critical reflection of an incident (in practice / during Healthcare related experience) where you were required to make a difficult decision showing how and why you made the decision. (500 words)
During my first degree I was working as a Weekend Care Coordinator for a company that provides domiciliary care. On weekends shift we have no managers/supervisors or seniors therefore I am the one fully in charge of any decision I make.
On a Sunday afternoon I get a phone call from a Care very concerned about a service user Mr John (pseudonym). Mr John was in bed under the blanket shaking and high temperature. When Carer decided to call the ambulance Mr John start shouting and verbally aggressive saying that he is well and there is no need for an ambulance and ask the Carer to leave the house. Carer call me to report it and ask for advice. Immediately I call Mr John to ask if he is well and as soon as he answer the phone I could hear that he is heavily breathing. I have advised Carer to call an ambulance and wait. Mr Jones feared doctors and start being very aggressive towards the carer asking her to leave. Under our policy we cannot leave the service user until the ambulance/care professionals arrived. I have called back the carer and advised her to leave the house and wait outside for the ambulance to come as S/U become more and more aggressive. I called ambulance again and explain the situation we are in and request if possible to priorities Mr John because sometimes, ambulance takes a lot of time to come and the carer was outside waiting in a cold weather. In 20 minutes the ambulance come and took Mr John to the hospital and has been diagnosed with septicaemia.
It was very difficult situation, but I felt relieved that between Mr John and the carer was no major conflict and Mr John was now in hospital in care professional’s hands.
The incident was very challenging for me, I regret I did not advised the carer to leave the house at first place and call the ambulance straight away but in the same time I had to consider Mr John decision due to the fact that our service users has already been seen by doctors or care professionals but the carers ware not aware and the office has not been informed.
Looking back at this incident, I totally can say I could have act sooner but in the same time Mr John has the right to refuse and make his own decisions as is mentally capable but knowing that Mr John is 91 of age, vulnerable, scared of doctors, in pain living alone with no family just 2 care visits a day ( 30 minutes each) I think I have done the right decision. I have contacted our head supervisor and ask for new risk assessment and care plan.
And
2 Provide evidence of your understanding and ability to utilise research – this may be via certificated learning, application of research and use of evidence during degree, for example in dissertation, or in a practical way – showing how this relates to nursing. (250 words)
With respect to understanding and ability to utilize research, during my 1st Degree program 2015-2018 the last year was based on Major Project Research, the application of research from my view relates to nursing. For example, during researches, students are normally subjected to instances of time management, data collection and reviewing of literature.
In time management in research, there is a Gantt chart that shows what should be done from one point to another. This is reflected in nursing as every nurse has that role of following the tight schedules in the career and even in work placement. This as skill that can be directly borrowed from the research. In data collection through methods such as interviews in research, students are prepared to be effective nurses as they are able to interact with patients and other stakeholders in health care domain as they tend to have gained a lot of experience during their data collection phase of their research as their respective institutions. These are some of features in research that have really helped me in health care career as I am able to relate well with all stakeholders in the nursing domain. When one is collecting research data, he or she is supposed to use polite language to those one is interviewing. This is an important aspect I learned during my research period as I had to collect data from all types of people and I had to study their background information before carrying out interviews.
Such instance has been of good help to me since in nursing arena I will be able to apply them while interacting with patients as well as reviewing various patients and other stakeholder records as I did during the literature review phases of my research.
Section 3
Generic/Transferrable Skills, demonstrate ability to:
• Think logically and systematically
• Draw reasoned conclusion and sound judgements
• engage with technology and effectively and efficiently use information technology
• prioritise and manage time effectively
To do this-
1. Provide evidence of ability to use technology, for example computer programmes and /or technology in practice (250 words)
With respect to the application of technology in nursing domain, during my period on course of work placement, various decision support systems were used by the company in ensuring that the company was able to make concrete decisions that were accurate. Besides that, the company further used technology to store various patients’ records and other stakeholder’s records. Following my experience in school and in work placement, I can evidently state that technology is one of important aspect in nursing. This is because it saves workforce needed to execute any given problem such as the searching of patient’s history. With technology, such problems are solved. As a care coordinator and care assistant, I have experienced that various computer programs usually helps in solving problems such as the one stated of helping trace all the stakeholders history as well as patients history. This is one of problem in healthcare domain have witnessed being solved by the use of computer-based information systems in company and in school.
Technology has therefore acted as a tool that have been used to manage time. I have been able to figure out how the nursing practice would be without technology. In real sense, I have seen a scenario where nurses would have to use a lot of time in management of patients records.
However, the introduction of technology has played a critical role in ensuring nurses are able to save more time that they could have used while managing of patients data. Besides that, various decision support systems in nursing arena are based on computer programs and they have helped the nursing and health care organizations in decision making processes.
And
2. Write a short reflection on how you have prioritised and managed time effectively – relating this to nursing practice (250 words)
With respect to time management, I happened to prioritize time management factor during my work placement as a Care Assistant and at the same time being a weekend care coordinator. Being at school and having a two part-time management jobs I had to ensure I am able to manage my time effectively in handling the two-part time jobs as well as ensuring I was able to do all my school work at the same time. Despite this scenario, I was able to achieve all those deliverables in school and at the work placement. I was able to achieve this courtesy of being a good time manager. I was able to develop a working schedule that helped me in doing any given task at a specific time without a failure. This helped me concentrate on school work while at the same time being able to concentrate on the work placement roles and responsibilities.
In a nutshell, I have witnessed that time management is an important aspect in any given life instance and in particular the discipline of nursing. For sure, with poor time management, I could not have been able to handle the two part-time jobs as well as the classwork. However, time management really helped me since with good working schedules I was able to know what I was to do at any given time. This is still reflected in nursing domain as any nurse has to follow a schedule on who to attend to at any given time. Therefore, time management has not only proved to be an important component in nursing domain, but also in all other aspects of life.
Section 4
Practice Skills, demonstrate how you
• Work within legal and ethical frameworks.
• Work in a fair and anti-discriminatory way, acknowledging individual difference.
• used skills of observation in practice.
• use effective communication skills.
• have identified and assessed health care needs.
• have formulated plans and strategies for meeting health care needs.
• worked with others collaboratively, demonstrating consultation, and problem solving and negotiation skills.
• have participated in quality assurance and risk management strategies.
• show a commitment to your personal development.
To do this-
1. Write a critical reflection of an incident related to working collaboratively in a team and how this relates to nursing. (500 words)
Working collaboratively with a team well defined as the team work. Teamwork is normally outlined as the collaborative effort of a team that is meant to achieve a common goal or is able to complete any given task in the most efficient and effective means. Drawing from my experience as a Care Assistant, I had to adopt team work during my work placement. This was to make sure I was able to meet all the deliverables needed in most efficient and effective way. The use of team work helped me on the course of the work placement as I and other colleagues we were able to combine efforts and knowledge in tackling various problems that emerged on the course of work placement effectively.
With respect on how I view relationship between teamwork and nursing, the presence of teams that is composed of nurses, primary care physicians and specialists every member on the team usually works together so that they can achieve a common goal, and this ends up improving the patients’ health and at the same time offering the highest possible level of care.
In any given typical teamwork, when nurses communicate regularly with patients physicians and teamwork, this offers a more specialized level of care. This is what was entailed during the teamwork I was involved. The relationship with nursing that exists is that different stakeholders in nursing are able to share ideas towards solving common problems that lead to maximum satisfaction among patients since such problem have been addressed as a team with individuals having different background who tend to offer different ideas that when combined they result into an ideal solution.
2. Identify and give a short explanation of how you have worked with a patient / client to identify their needs and how you helped to meet these needs (250 words)
These reflections should include evidence of your communication and observational skills
Concerning how I have worked with patient/client to identify their needs and how I have helped them to address their respective needs, several instances come into my mind concerning my interaction with patient/client during my work placement. During my work placement as care coordinator and care assistant, I was directly involved in identifying patients/client needs and coming up with means of addressing the needs. I was able to communicate and interview various patients/clients regarding their problems. I used to record those problems and forwarding them to other specialist departments so that such needs are addressed. The main issue in identifying clients/patient needs is typically based on having intensive communication between me and the client/patient. This resulted to me having a wide range of needs that I could offer as drawing my solution from my career course, I would at some time suggest they see specialist departments within the organization and at the same time recommend the specialist what they should concentrate more on some particular aspects in any given patient or client.
In a nutshell, my work placement experience played an important role towards assisting client /patients care. I typically engaged patients/client directly and I identified persistent problems that were faced by clients/patients that I accordingly sent to other departments that were related to such problems for further analysis and medication.