Nurse training

What's it like being a student nurse at Evelina London?

Our students are supervised and mentored by ward staff and supported by the clinical education team. They spend 50% of their training at university and 50% of the time in clinical placements.

During their time at Evelina London, our students are exposed to a variety of learning opportunities from medical, surgical, outpatients and out-of-hospital care. We encourage our student nurses to use evidence-based practice and research and link these to clinical application.

What to expect from your placement?

Our students receive weekly teaching sessions delivered by our expert clinicians. We also believe in the ethos of listening to our students; this means they have the opportunity to feedback on practice and help to develop improvements within our services.

Our high standard of training has meant we have recruited all of our students that wanted employment at Evelina London.

Our newly qualified band 5 nurses undertake both the Trust’s preceptorship programme and the acute care skills programme which helps the development of clinical skills and knowledge.  

We use simulation training in each of the programmes where our students can practice and learn essential skills, for example IV administration.

All new nursing staff can take part in the newly qualified band 5 rotation programme. The two-year programme consists of three eight month placements which cover general and specialist ward areas as well as intensive care (PICU), neonatal intensive care unit, A&E, community, and theatres and recovery.

This mix of clinical experience allows our newly qualified nurses to consolidate their learning and gain a broad skill set for their future as an Evelina London staff nurse.

As well as the mandatory training component of paediatric basic life support, our nursing staff now rotate through a programme of PILS (paediatric immediate life support) and PAIM (paediatric acute illness management).

Each ward area also provides development days for its own staff and looks at specific training needs for its area.

This includes:

• ECMO (extracorporeal membrane oxygenation)
• CVVH (continuous veno-venous haemofiltration)
• retrieval
• diabetes
• metabolic disease management
• bereavement
• cardiac conditions
• management of orthopaedic and spinal conditions.

Nursing assistants can complete a diploma in health and paediatric support.

They can also attend monthly forums and take part in simulation study days where they can practise skills in a supportive environment and gain valuable feedback.