What can my organisation do to support preceptorship?
Information about the arrangements organisations should make to facilitate preceptorship and support both preceptors and preceptees.
Supporting Preceptorship
For preceptorship to be effective and support preceptees into their new role, way of working and culture of the workplace, organisations need to foster a culture that supports preceptorship and embeds the principles of preceptorship within its operational systems and processes. This means that a period of preceptorship should be offered to all new Registrants, as well as staff new to a role, practice setting, or environment regardless of their seniority or position within the organisation. Preceptorship activities should also align with and complement the workplace orientation and induction programme. Starting work in a new role, setting or promoted position, or supporting a new member of staff can feel stressful, therefore, during the preceptorship period consideration should be given to the physical, emotional and mental health wellbeing of both preceptees and preceptors.
How the preceptorship programme is managed will vary between organisations. It is recommended that organisations appoint a named person to lead, evaluate and review the preceptorship programme. This may be undertaken by local managers or be within the remit of practice education. The ‘What is expected of me’ section provides ‘further information about the organisation/ strategic lead role’
Nevertheless, the NMC (2020) recommend that a governance framework is established that facilitates effective organisational structures and processes to support preceptorship in practice.
For example...
In addition to identifying preceptees and preceptors, strategies should be in place to evaluate the preceptorship experience of the preceptee as well as measure the benefit and impact of the preceptorship programme for the organisation.
The use of quality improvement methodologies may be useful to demonstrate improvement, share learning and ensure the approach to preceptorship is effective.
Furthermore, although the NMC (2020) do not stipulate formal qualifications or defined period of professional experience to be a preceptor, they do expect preceptors to have received appropriate preparation to enable them to understand and undertake their role. Therefore, organisations have a responsibility to ensure that preceptors are adequately prepared for their role. The ‘Facilitation of Learning' programme is considered to provide learning suitable to prepare practitioners for the preceptor role.