Nurse educator education: Quo Vadis?

An efficient and effective nursing workforce requires quality education programmes, and to maintain this quality, excellent nurse educators are needed. To-date, across Europe, the preparation of nurse educators remains fragmented, with no unified standards of competence or qualifications. This lack of shared standards may undermine the quality of nursing education and, consequently, patient care. In this context and with a growing workforce shortage, this gap has become a pressing contemporary issue. In this paper, the authors argue that, notwithstanding the prevalent differences in nurse educator programmes and pathways across Europe, the harmonization of the expected competencies and minimum requirements is indicated to improve parity in the quality of nurse education. As a result, this should translate into a comparative high quality of nursing care delivery across different European countries and contexts. In this paper we present a set of recommendations to harmonise standards and to agree minimum requirements for nurse educator education programmes. The recommendations are the result of an Erasmus+ project, (name blinded to review) "the New Nurse Educator," completed by a consortium of university partners from six European countries; Finland, Germany, Malta, Scotland, Slovakia and Spain. The project comprised a literature review and a research study, the design and pilot run of an accredited 30 ECTS nurse educator programme and the drawing of recommendations after an extensive discussion in each partner country and at consortium level. An external review of the recommendations was conducted by a purposive panel of experts. The recommendations span five nurse educator relevant domains: (1) required qualifications and competence, (2) opportunities for continuous professional development, (3) occupational wellbeing, (4) the establishment of an Observatory Body and (5) a European Academy for nurse educator education. These recommendations aim to stimulate debate among universities, employers, and policymakers, calling for urgent action to safeguard patient care by investing in those who educate future nurses.