Feasibility of supporting newly qualified nurses: Nominal group technique of the perspectives of nursing stakeholders

Background: As the health industry grows, integration of newly qualified nurses into the workplace is critical to workforce sustainability. In one health service, a work-based student learning program, the Collaborative Clusters Education Model, was extended to support newly qualified nurses in their transition to the workplace. 

Aim: To describe the feasibility of the Collaborative Clusters Education Model to support newly qualified nurses. 

Design: Evaluative methodology using Nominal Group Technique. 

Methods: Convenience and snowball sampling were used to recruit participants from three stakeholder groups: clinical nurse facilitators (two groups: n1 = 7; n2 = 5), nurse leaders (n = 9) and practice partners, registered nurses who support with newly qualified nurses (n = 5). Groups provided nominal rankings of ideas (quantitative data) and group discussions were recorded and professionally transcribed (qualitative data). Data analysis involved three stages: i) quantitative analysis; ii) qualitative analysis and iii) synthesising qualitative and quantitative data to create meaning. 

Results: The priorities focused broadly on the challenges associated with individual and organisational capacity to support newly qualified nurses. In addition to capacity, clinical facilitator capability, teamwork and communication, and role ambiguity were identified as key issues. 

Conclusions: The feasibility of supporting newly qualified nurses via the Collaborative Clusters Education Model would be enhanced with improved alignment between stakeholder roles and responsibilities. In contemporary workplaces, characterised by distributed responsibility for learning support, there is a need for increased role clarity across the stakeholder team. Furthermore, the need for improved access to experienced mentors points to the potential of team-based models of nursing care delivery.