Getting the most out of your clinical placement in district nursing

The community placement is a vitally important part of any nurse's training, and the student has a responsibility to be proactive in learning from it. To this end, Northumbria University has pioneered a portfolio of learning opportunities (POLO) to provide students with a structure overview of the opportunities available to them during a placement and how to make the most of them. The POLO also assists mentors in framing their support of the student. In this article, a practice placement facilitator outlines the structure of a POLO, and argues for a more coherent approach to student placements.