In this unit, you will have the opportunity to practice fundamental nursing care in the aged care environment. You will apply the Nursing and Midwifery Board of Australia (NMBA) registered nurse standards for practice (2016). You will continue to explore the importance of the National Safety and Quality Health Service (NSQHS) Standards (2017) to all nursing practice in Australia and use the Patient Safety Competency Framework (PSCF) (Levett-Jones et al., 2017) in your practice as a nursing student. You will be expected to identify risk and recognise and respond appropriately to the deteriorating patient in the simulated and clinical environment. You will review the concept of scope of practice using the decision-making framework (DMF) (NMBA, 2020). You are required to participate in a compulsory three (3) day residential school or alternatively, an on-campus workshop prior to attending professional experience placement for this unit. This unit includes a 120 hour block professional experience placement in an aged care environment. You must meet specific mandatory health, safety and security requirements to be eligible to attend each professional experience placement. Professional experience placements may be limited in your community and you may be placed in other locations. Please be prepared financially and personally to cover the costs to relocate for placements. Due to the limited availability of placements, some block placements have start and/or end dates that fall outside standard term dates.

Every unit is reviewed for enhancement each year. At the most recent review, the following staff and student feedback items were identified and recommendations were made.

Feedback from Student evaluation

In my opinion students need more days in Residential School to get more information and experience from tutors, and be prepared especially for hospital placement.

Residential school curricula will be reviewed and refined to ensure students are prepared for their respective clinical placements.

Feedback from Student evaluation

Overall the content provided was up to date and examples used in residential school were similar to real life experiences, helping improve our skills and knowledge surrounding the assessments/paperwork. Sometimes the content was hard to understand, possibly due to how it was worded or the resources we were given, however, it was easy enough to work around it.

Resources and content delivered in residential school curricula will be reviewed and refined as appropriate and will ensure the currency of knowledge and skills is relevant to first-year students.

Feedback from Student evaluation

The Residential school provided by the unit was poorly executed. I was not prepared properly for placement, there was lots and lots of theory and little hands on learning. My educators did very well in the math exam aspect. I feel as though 6 days of residential in our first year and than expecting us to be competent in a hospital setting is ridiculous.

We will review and refine residential school curricula to ensure more learning opportunities are provided in the clinical practice space for residential schools.