Service user involvement: inspiring student nurses to make a difference to patient care

UK policy directives have placed service users/carers at the centre of health care provision and education. Underlying these policy directives is the anticipation that this involvement will produce practitioners capable of delivering enhanced care. This paper reports on the evaluation of an innovation around the introduction of a student nurse pledge to enhance patient care. Following exposure to the service user stories in the classroom students documented a pledge, within their practice assessment documents, to improve one aspect of patient care. Of the 284 pledges evaluated, 219 were successfully achieved with, 171 relating to compassion, communication and nutrition. These aspects of care are often cited as causing the most distress to patients.65 students were unable to fulfil their pledge, citing reasons such as poor resources, lack of time. Disappointingly, mentors validated the students' inability to fulfil their pledge with little guidance as to how to succeed with their pledge. The impact of this innovation on student practice learning and patient care are discussed. The paper concludes that service user involvement can result in enhanced patient care and that educators can support students to narrow the theory/practice gap by making connections between theory and real life experiences.