A Blended Approach to Practice Simulation Placements in Undergraduate Nursing

The aim of this abstract submission is to demonstrate the use of a blended approach to deliver an alternative to clinical placement for pre-registration Nursing Students, enabling a diverse learning experience over a 6-week period, while retaining a focus on clinical practice. It demonstrates how the use of innovative technologies such as high fidelity simulation and Virtual Reality software, together with a more traditional approach to learning, can deliver a valuable learning experience in the absence of a clinical placement.



A significant shortfall of clinical placements due to operational changes post-pandemic, resulted in a reduction of the capacity of Trusts to accommodate all students. This led to the urgent development of a Simulated Practice Module to be delivered over a period of 12 weeks during May-July 2022. It consisted of 2 consecutive 6-week blocks for 2 separate groups of student nurses in year 1 of the BSc (Hons) Nursing Programme.

The 6-week simulated placement consisted of a 37.5 hour week, enabling students to accumulate practice hours as they would in clinical placement. It was therefore imperative that the students remained engaged in the process to maximise their practice hours and provide a rich and varied, practice focused learning experience.

This was achieved through a blended approach to delivery, combining face to face teaching in the classroom and clinical skills facility, with taught content online and self-directed eLearning. Additional training was sourced through external providers as well as collaboration with international and local healthcare providers.

The Simulated Placement was not formally assessed. Each group were given a project to complete over the 6-week period, to foster group cohesion and develop their management and leadership capabilities. These were presented on the final day of each cohort.

The Simulated Placement appears to have been a great success, enabling students to achieve a maximum of 225 practice hours. Feedback was largely positive, particularly favouring the social aspect of establishing a new peer group, in addition to the wide variety of new and diverse experiences in nursing.

Several recommendations have been made for future deliveries, including timetabling; attendance monitoring; assessment and documentation of learning, and interprofessional collaboration. The Simulated Placement will continue to play a key part in the undergraduate nursing curriculum, with a 9-week assessed Simulated Placement already planned for the next academic year.