Do mentors feel pressurized to pass failing students?

High quality clinical placements are essential for learning in pre-registration nursing (Leyshon 2005). Mentors play a pivotal role in student nurses’ clinical learning. This role encompasses supporting, teaching, facilitating and ultimately assessing the student’s clinical performance. Therefore, mentors have a responsibility as ‘gatekeepers’ to the nursing profession. One of their roles being to prevent “failing students” who engage in unsafe practice from becoming registered nurses, thereby protecting the public from incompetent practitioners.