Healthcare Solutions: Enterprising Nursing Year 2 (Level 5) (QAA 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7)

Objective:

To help Nurses understand the relevance of enterprise education  to their profession by

  • Providing a learning environment to enable them to develop enterprise competencies
  • Setting a challenge to solve with major community impact
  • Providing the opportunity to pitch to major funders
  • Providing opportunity to reflect on  their skill development and learnings

Introduction:

This example was delivered in a standard lecture theatre for initial interactive workshop, moving (after forty five minutes six tutorial rooms) used for group task in order to deliver to a class of 300.

Within this half day session, second year nurses were introduced to the concepts of enterprise and its relevance to the nursing profession. They had to debate its relevance within the lecture and work in groups to develop solutions to healthcare problems. They then faced a group challenge over a three hour period, which they ultimately needed to present to be assessed by a panel including a lecturer, nursing practitioner and a nursing entrepreneur (externals).

Activity:

Initial exploration of the concepts of enterprise and entrepreneurship allows for agreement to be formed over “what are the enterprise skills or competencies” being sought by nurses and within healthcare.

Using interactive and discursive techniques to allow for initial thoughts and fears to be shared in small group, it is possible to explore these personal skills and draw out experiences and expertise from the prior knowledge/background of the student group.

The next stage is to collate these responses to create a formal group response (see skill development through reflective practice HOW TO GUIDE ETC SKILL) and ask them, as a group, to debate their relevance to practical nursing. Once this has been explored as the full cohort, put the students into groups and ask them to identify student health problems (issues of personal health that they and their peers ought to consider) and brain storm how to solve or reduce the impact of this issue. Using resources, knowledge and materials they are invited to be ready to pitch to panel for 10 minutes (there is an option to submit group written report) where they will ideally pitch to a panel of externals.

Another option is to provide each team with investment money (monopoly money or similar) and invite them to “fund” the best idea. Once feedback has been given to the group, invite full group reflection and re-examine enterprise skills and behaviours and their confidence in them.

Impact:

The impact of this approach was clear, with over fifty unsolicited emails providing positive feedback (in addition to the module review). This was measured annually but with the initial 300 students tracked for ten years with their level of Enterprise competency development measure Comments included “the most relevant, best teaching in my entire Nursing degree” and “I now understand how enterprise relates to nursing and intend to make a difference through being an enterprising nurse”.

The students in particular enjoyed the interactivity, the focus on social enterprise and the use of fun and drama to get all students involved – and overall the module feedback was the highest for any teaching in the nursing degree.

The initial group of 300 filled in an “efactor” (Gibson 2006) competency questionnaire (both before and after the programme) and then two years five years and ten years afterwards. This clearly showed that all enterprise competencies had increased but in particular resilience, creativity and personal branding had shown the most significant increases over a ten year period.

Wider impact was also demonstrated as five student groups per annum received UNLTD funding and one group in year two won the University business pitch competition, competing against students from all disciplines.

Learner Outcome:

By exploring their own creativity within the context of how social enterprises work, all the nursing students were able to explore their enterprise competences and understand the link between enterprise and nursing. Discussions surrounding the changing Health Environment help to separate out an individual’s potential for creativity from perceived increasing corporatisation through privatisation and ensure that the student understand their role in patient care requires enterprising skills and behaviour, working within the NHS framework.

The students all enjoyed the opportunity for creative group work and exploring their profession in a new light.

Further support for the pitching/presentation elements could be have beneficial to some groups, had additional time been available. However the “common currency” of TV Programmes such as “Dragon’s Den” allows pitching to be introduced as a fast and effective communication/presentation method to any student group.

Resources:

  • Post-its
  • Flipcharts
  • Optional: externals / Alumni
  • Optional: ‘fake’ money for funding/investment

Link to HOW TO ETC GUIDES on Debating Group work Building Reflective Practice by understanding Skill Development

References:

Author/Contact Details:

  • Professor David Gibson OBE, Head of Entrepreneurship Education, Liverpool John Moores university (d.a.gibson@ljmu.ac.uk)

Author / Attribution

This guide was produced by David Gibson OBE ( Head of Entrepreneurship Education, Liverpool John Moores University ). If you would like to contact the author, please use this email address:- d.a.gibson@ljmu.ac.uk.