Education Commissioners Action Learning Sets

The Department of Health (DH) commissioned Skills for Health – Workforce Projects Team and John Sargent, workforce development consultant, to complete a project which:

• Identifies the factors which contribute to attrition levels amongst pre registration nursing and midwifery students
• Identifies examples of good practice where active steps have been taken in an attempt to manage these factors.

The factors that appear to contribute to attrition have been identified broadly as:

• Data and information issues
• Effective marketing, recruitment and selection processes
• Academic and clinical skills failure
• Effective student support
• Clinical placement issues
• Relationships, organisational and course issues.