The use of a Competence Fair to validate nursing competence

Strategies to ensure that nursing competence is maintained and validated are of increasing importance and are much discussed in the nursing literature. Professional bodies, employers, nurses themselves and most importantly patients need to have reassurance that competence across the profession is uniform and is maintained. This is of particular concern in the increasingly globalised and multinational workforces which exist in many health care institutions. This paper describes an educational initiative, and the evaluation thereof, which aimed to validate and enhance nurse competency in a multinational workforce in a medical city in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Results indicate that there was variability in competencies across the organisation which allowed for targeted educational interventions. The initiative was well received by the nurses in the organisation and the evaluation points to the need for ongoing strategies to ensure that competence in maintained.