Hands-on expe­ri­ence in spe­cial­ty areas such as emer­gency is an oppor­tu­ni­ty rarely offered to city and region­al nurs­es in their first years after graduation. 

A WACHS’ pro­gram in WA is delib­er­ate­ly tar­get­ing new grad­u­ates and the ben­e­fits are being felt by both the par­tic­i­pants and six par­tic­i­pat­ing hos­pi­tals in the Pil­bara region. The pro­gram was intro­duced two years ago and focus­es on encour­ag­ing clin­i­cal capa­bil­i­ty and confidence.

The expe­ri­ence the par­tic­i­pat­ing nurs­es gain often places them in a com­pet­i­tive posi­tion when they look to progress into more senior roles, says Region­al Direc­tor Nurs­ing and Mid­wifery Yvonne Bagwell.

“Our pro­gram has been designed to edu­cate, men­tor, and invest in our nurs­es from the very begin­ning and upskill them by pro­vid­ing a vari­ety of oppor­tu­ni­ties to learn,” WACHS Pil­bara says.

Sup­port­ed by clin­i­cal experts and edu­ca­tors, includ­ing senior clin­i­cal nurse man­agers, the pro­gram gives new­ly qual­i­fied nurs­es access to a broad­er scope of care. 

This is how new­ly qual­i­fied reg­is­tered nurse, Eli Fos­ter, work­ing at Roe­bourne Dis­trict Hos­pi­tal, described the ini­tia­tive – as giv­ing him hands-on devel­op­ment oppor­tu­ni­ties he nev­er expected.

“The Tran­si­tion to Prac­tice pro­gram offered at WACHS allowed me to gain so many skills valu­able to my prac­tice, such as can­nu­la­tion and patient-focussed assess­ments,” he says.

“This has helped boost my con­fi­dence to prac­tice independently.”

As a result of pos­i­tive feed­back from staff, the pro­gram has since been repli­cat­ed to oth­er clin­i­cal areas. The Peri-Oper­a­tive Tran­si­tion Pro­gram and Can­cer Ser­vices Tran­si­tion Pro­gram are both in their first year of oper­a­tion with great feed­back already received from participants.