Skills centre: why we did it, how we did it

A review of current nurse education research in the UK, and relevant research from the USA has indicated that nursing students are experiencing difficulties in acquiring psychomotor skills. The reasons are possibly quite complex, but student and clinical staff evaluations point to short clinical placements and lack of college preparation as the cause. As a result of this review and a pilot survey, a skills centre has been built at Avon and Gloucestershire College of Health (Avon Site). This paper examines in detail the literature that led to the commissioning of the skills centre and provides practical guidelines on how a skills learning facility can be developed together with information on using a structured, but not confining, approach to teaching psychomotor skills. Further study will demonstrate how the skills centre can be evaluated using qualitative and quantitative research strategies.