Raising concerns in practice: student guidance. A national approach for students, practice learning experience providers and higher education institutions in Scotland

The aim of this guidance is to describe the process for dealing with instances of poor care witnessed by nursing or midwifery students while on practice. Poor care in this context refers to situations in which care is perceived to be inadequate, below an acceptable standard, abusive or neglectful.This guidance is based on the premise that poor care is never acceptable.This guidance is designed for use in all audited practice learning environments across Scotland. Drawing on the revised Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) Code (NMC 2015a), Raising concerns: Guidance for nurses and midwives (NMC 2015b) and following a review of the international literature (Ion et al, 2017), it updates and replaces any previous local guidance available to students from universities in raising care concerns.This guidance outlines the responsibilities of the universities, students and practice learning experience providers. In addition it describes the process for dealing with concerns and identifies recommended timelines.It is not concerned with the equally important, but fundamentally different, issues which can arise when mentors have concerns about the performance of students on practice or when students believe that some aspect of their practice learning experience is adversely affected by relationships with mentors or other members of the team. Matters of this type, while serious, can be dealt with more effectively through locally agreed practice learning support protocols and procedures, and the guidance available in the Scottish Ongoing Achievement Record.