Developing a framework for partnership between organisations that provide nursing and midwifery education

Abstract

This study is about the development of a framework for partnership between organisations that provide nursing and midwifery education. Within this partnership context, there is an onus of accountability on professional providers and on those who educate them in third-level educational organisations, which is predicated on the public perception of trust. It carries assumptions about the competence and safety of professional practitioners and the quality of their skills. This relates to determinants about (a) fitness for practice, which is a statutory public safety requirement of An Bord Altranais; (b) fitness for award in terms of meeting the academic requirements of the third level educational organisation; and (c) fitness for purpose in relation to doing the work employers expect of a qualified practitioner. But a health system cannot necessarily take responsibility for the acquisition of a body of knowledge and skills that it did not develop. Therefore there has to be a reliance on third-level-based nursing and midwifery educational organisations to educate nurses and midwives with abilities and attitudes that match the social accountabilities of the health service. Partnership arrangements therefore, that link teaching hospitals to third level educational organisations hold the key to the future of nursing and midwifery education in this country.