NMC Revalidation: What Training Courses You Need To Do

Following her previous video, GP Nurse, Claire, explains the training courses required for successful NMC revalidation, with tips and advice on how to manage your training effectively.

Topics covered in this article

Introduction

Look At The NMC Code Of Conduct

Specific Disease & Vaccine Training

Think Outside The Box

Documenting Your Progress

Other Types Of Training

The NMC Revalidation CPD Log

Introduction

Hi everyone, this is NMC revalidation.

What training courses you need to do.

So for your three yearly revalidation, part of that that you have to absolutely mandatory complete is 35 hours of continuing professional development or CPD hours.

And 20 of those hours, you have to physically participate in that training, so as long as you've met those criteria, you're good to go.

However, you don't want to just do any training that's not going to be relevant to Nursing.

Like you're not going to do a crochet course and then bring it into Nursing.

Or you could if you wanted to but the training has to link with the NMC code of conduct.

Look At The NMC Code Of Conduct

So have a look at the NMC code of conduct.

Have a look at the different sections and what you can link training into.

So for example, you may use your advanced life support or basic life support, life support in some way.

Do that training and then you would link it to preserve patient safety and some mandatory courses that I've seen out there, that I've done myself that most trusts will have you do every single year.

Things like your manual handling, your life support, health and safety, infection control, information governance, fire safety, and equality and diversity.

But some of the things that I personally have to do in General Practice are things like my cervical screening updates, cold chain.

So this is talking about fridge temperatures and vaccines and how to store them, sharps bins training on which sharps bins you should be using for which sharps.

Specific Disease & Vaccine Training

Sepsis awareness training and dementia training, but also, we need to do the training for our immunisations and vaccines as well.

So that's gotta be regular training as well.

So things at the minute, hot topic, COVID vaccines, for example, there's always a new learning package for COVID.

I'm constantly refreshing that every single week by the looks of it.

And then some other topics you might think of, is what do you need for your area?

Whichever area you're in, so for example, I was in sexual health before so I did some sexual health and contraception training as well.

That was a mandatory thing that I had to keep on top of.

Think Outside The Box

Different guidelines and policies and things like that.

Medications change as well.

So it's really good idea to think about, okay, what does my role involve and what sort of training do I need to maintain the level of competence for that role?

But then also think about, okay, what sort of specific things do I do in this role?

Think about around the area.

If you're working again in sexual health, what sort of things would you want to learn, extra things that will help enhance your knowledge to put into practice.

So for example, there's a lot of things that I think are lacking with the mandatory trainings.

Things like we don't have enough mental health awareness, we don't have enough LGBT awareness.

We don't have enough on trans health for example, there's so much.

I personally go out there and I fish for these different training packages to do myself, so that I can gain that knowledge base and help those types of patients when they come into my clinic.

And that's not something that's on the mandatory list but it's something that I know that I need.

And I think that everyone should probably do at some point because I do have a lot of friends as well that are transgender, under the LGBT umbrella.

I know how difficult it can be for them and how poor experiences they've had in healthcare because people just aren't aware of different pronouns and terminology and things like that.

And they often get it wrong as a result, they don't mean to, they're just not aware, they haven't had the training.

That's why I always want to refresh and update my own knowledge to make sure that I'm improving those lives.

And I'm making little changes here and there.

Think about that when you're in practice, what else can you do to help your patients?

Think outside the box.

Documenting Your Progress

So then once you've done your training for revalidation, you have to document it on a CPD log.

I've talked about this in the CPD vlog that I did, but I'm just going to briefly run through it again now, here for you.

So you want to talk about the description of what you did and how it relates to your practice.

Obviously document the dates and times that you've done this over the last, it's gotta be spread over three years, this revalidation.

Documenting the number of hours.

'Cause like I said, at the start, you have to get 35 hours minimum for your CPD and mandatory training log.

And then, like I said before, you have to link it back to the code.

So which part of the code does that training link to?

And then you want to include your evidence.

Well, how are you going to evidence that you did that training and you're not just making things up to pass your revalidation.

You want certificates, you want feedback, you want reflections, you want an analysis, a written analysis of your training.

All these little things can really, really help but most training now will give you some form of certificate.

So if you haven't had a certificate for something, make sure you ask, and then you can just put it in there. And Bob's your uncle.

Other Types Of Training

And other types of training that you can class as training, is if you've attended an event or a conference for example, like an educational conference.

So for me, I'm now an asthma and COPT Nurse in my surgery.

If I go to like an asthma conference or a respiratory conference, for example, I can put that down on my CPD log that I've done that.

And I've listened to the speakers and I've gained the knowledge.

And hopefully I'll have some sort of print out to put in there as my evidence of going to that or my ticket or something like that.

And then I might want to write like a little reflection on that and how I've enhanced my knowledge for my patients in the future.

The NMC Revalidation CPD Log

And if you literally just have a Google, NMC revalidation CPD log, you will get a template to log all of your things.

But obviously, if you wanted to just make your own log, that's okay too, it really doesn't matter.

But the NMC CPD log is really, really useful. It's there, it's ready for you literally just download it, input your information, job done.

And my last little piece of advice, make sure you document it as you go because if you're at your three year mark and you are at your revalidation and you're thinking, oh gosh, I've got my revalidation tomorrow and I haven't documented everything.

For you to go back the three years of your Nursing career and look at every single piece of training or conference or event that you've attended, it's going to be tricky and you're going to get stressed.

So please, if you've done something, put it in the log, it's there, it's ready to go.

That is it from me.

I hope I've given you some useful insight to what's expected of you in the mandatory training that you have to do as a Nurse.

Let me know in the comments, what sort of training have you done.

Think outside the box.

What have you done that wasn't mandatory but you really just wanted to do it to gain your own knowledge for your patients?

Let me know in the comments.

Thanks guys, have a great day.