Supervision – supporting student nurses

The purpose of clinical supervision is to provide students on placement in a clinical/ward environment with the optimal opportunity to ensure that they are ready for practice as a qualified nurse having met (and hopefully exceeded) the required outcomes of their program of study through experiential learning.

This ensures that the gap between theory and practice is narrowed, and the student is given a better grounding in the fundamentals of nursing than would be available in a purely academic environment.

All nurses are governed by The Code (Nursing Midwifery Council (NMC), 2018g). With such governance, the benefits of supervision are clear for all parties. The purpose of this article is to consider further how as nurses we cannot only uphold The Code (NMC, 2018g), but also to develop ourselves and students through clinical supervision.

Practice supervision of students

The NMC (2019) created the Standards for Student Supervision and Assessment. The