Gail Nash – Transcript
My name is Gail Nash. I’m one of the Allied Health Professions Practice Education Leads for NHS Lothian. I work with allied health professionals from all disciplines across the health board area and with all grades of staff.
The main aim of my job is to look at the workplace as a learning environment and help to create learning opportunities for staff, for their continuing professional development as well.
I think an effective practitioner is somebody who strives to develop knowledge and skills to allow them to provide safe, effective, person-centred care, really using the workplace to learn. That means that they can then have a very clear pathway around how they’re going to develop and how they’re going to become better because everybody can improve on what they do.
Many practitioners are already carrying our work-based learning. In fact, I would challenge anyone to say they go into the workplace and don’t learn anything in a day. It’s about reflecting on it. It’s the recognition that what they’re doing in the workplace is actually just as valuable as formal education. It ‘s about making the link between what they’re doing in the workplace and how that feeds into their PDP and their HPC re-registration.
A practical example of work-based learning has been where a group of staff has come together - a group of AHP paediatric staff - who have come together and learned together. So they have looked at shadowing each other, they have joint in-services, and really just a more joined-up approach to their learning.
Informal discussions that you have with a colleague could be learning in the workplace. It’s about reflecting on those discussions and recording them in a meaningful way. People can use different methods of recording their work-based learning for their CPD. It doesn’t have to be one size fits all. Some people can use their online professional body’s website or learning log. Other people might use Post-it notes, a notebook or their diary to record that. It’s basically just finding a method that works for you to record the evidence and the learning that you’re actually undertaking.
The learning activities as part of the Effective Practitioner initiative have all been linked with and mapped to the KSF core dimensions, so again just making people realise that when they’re carrying out the learning activities they will be able to use them as part of their PDP.
I really like the self-assessment tool and the learning activities because I think they give a progression for staff rather than it just being stand-alone self-assessment tool. Once they’ve identified their learning requirements, there are activities they can carry out to actually meet those requirements.
Effective Practitioner is not about telling you what to do, it’s allowing you to plan your own career journey at your own pace. It’s not over and above what you’re doing already it should complement what you’re already doing in practice.
There’s something in this for everyone whether you’re two years qualified or 20 years qualified - it’s about making what you do count.