Developing career pathways for new nurses: lessons from inner London

Inner city primary care trusts (PCTs) often have difficulty in recruiting nursing staff, while newly qualified nurses are often unaware of what opportunities community settings offer. This article reports the development of a rotational scheme designed to reduce recruitment problems and to assist understanding by newly qualified nurses of the interface between hospital and primary care. The scheme was jointly run by a PCT, a hospital and an academic unit. Various difficulties were encountered, as revealed in an interim evaluation. For example, the impression was created among some participating staff nurses and their mentors and managers that they had student status, which limited their opportunities both to learn and to provide care. The scheme was re-designed in the light of the evaluation, and a further evaluation found that participating staff nurses appreciated the opportunities the scheme offered, and that their work was valued by placement mentors and managers.