How Locum Nurses Can Collect Effective Feedback For Revalidation

"Locum nurses find it more difficult to collect feedback as they do not have appraisals, performance reviews or regular colleagues."

The NMC requires nurses to reflect on five pieces of practice-related feedback to succeed in revalidation. Nursing agency, AppLocum, offer their tips for getting the required feedback.

Topics Covered In This Article

Revalidation And Locum Nurses

Variety Of Settings

Feedback From Colleagues And Managers

Feedback From Patients

Dealing With Negative Feedback

Have Confidence

Revalidation And Locum Nurses

Feedback is an important part of a nurse’s practice.

It helps you to identify areas of strength and improvement. It is an opportunity to understand the standards expected by patients and how their expectations can be met or addressed.

The NMC requires nurses to reflect on five pieces of practice-related feedback to succeed in revalidation.

Locum nurses sometimes find it more difficult to collect feedback as they do not have appraisals, performance reviews or regular colleagues.

In both hospitals and practices, there is also less continuity of patient care so patients may be less likely to leave feedback.

In this article, we seek to close the gaps in locums receiving feedback.

Locums can take comfort in the fact that feedback can come in many forms and doesn’t necessarily have to be formal, such as written on a feedback form or included in an appraisal. It can be informal and verbal, too.

Make sure that you avoid identifying individuals by keeping them anonymous and avoiding too much specific information.

Feedback can come from patients, colleagues and management.

Variety Of Settings

Working in a variety of settings is an advantage to locums as they experience different ways of working.

Receiving feedback in a variety of settings will maximise your potential to improve your practice and capitalise on your strengths in different ways.

In one setting, certain strengths may come to the forefront.

In another, you may find that you are given responsibilities which open an opportunity for personal development.

You will also come across colleagues and managers with different strengths and specialities who may notice a specific area of strength or improvement in your practice.

Feedback From Colleagues And Managers

Many nurses collect feedback from their managers during appraisals and performance reviews.

However, this option isn’t available to locum nurses as they work for themselves.

Proactively asking for feedback will show that you are engaged in your own practice and self-development.

Managers and colleagues may be impressed by this proactive mindset and should be happy to provide feedback, especially if you are in a long-term placement.

It isn’t only managers and other clinicians that you can ask for feedback, but also the receptionist who liaises with patients as they leave an appointment.

They will also have a good insight into how to co-ordinate collecting feedback from patients.

Additionally, healthcare organisations will sometimes provide feedback to nursing agencies.

Discuss with your consultant whether they can share any feedback about your practice.

Feedback From Patients

A report on the NMC revalidation process by Ipsos MORI Social Research Institute found that passive feedback such as thank you cards was unlikely to lead to meaningful change in practice.

In response, the NMC has suggested that they “want to work with patient representative groups and others to understand what support we can provide to help overcome these barriers [to meaningful patient feedback].”

If you find that you have only collected passive feedback, you need to start asking for it directly.

It may be more of a challenge for locums to receive active feedback, but it will be more beneficial in the long run.

If you have built a positive relationship with colleagues in a particular setting, ask if they have an existing patient feedback system.

They will understand the importance of feedback in nursing practice.

You can ask support staff to hand out feedback forms and briefly explain the process to patients.

If using the feedback form system, patients asked for feedback should be chosen at random and kept anonymous to prevent personal bias.

You can also send feedback forms to an independent survey provider to be processed.

Dealing With Negative Feedback

It can be a jarring experience to receive complaints.

In certain cases, locums can be more vulnerable to complaints because they may:

• be less familiar with the patient

• not have had an adequate induction

• have less knowledge of the organisation’s specific policies.

Despite not being a permanent part of the organisation, you should be kept informed of the complaint and given the opportunity to contribute to the response.

However, there is usually no need to be afraid of complaints.

When making a complaint, most patients want to know that they are being listened to and that action will be taken.

Using complaints as a point for reflection and improvement can make a bigger difference than the compliments.

It can help you understand patient expectations and identify areas where your practice can be improved.

Have Confidence

Locum nurses may have to take a more active approach to receiving feedback, but it shouldn’t feel impossible. You can make a huge difference to a patient’s health in a short amount of time and this deserves feedback to acknowledge your impact and achieve your best standards.

Thank you to AppLocum (and Misha) for this advice. Please browse their jobs here.