Increasing placement opportunities at a London community trust

As healthcare service provision is shifting from acute hospital settings to community settings and primary care, the nursing curriculum puts an increased emphasis on these sectors with student nurses increasingly needing community-based clinical placements. Furthermore, changes in how students are mentored in clinical practice are under way. In collaboration with London South Bank University, a London community trust has expanded its offer of clinical placements through a pilot project involving 11 children’s centres. The placements were either hub-and-breadth-spoke placements or used a team-mentoring model. This article describes the pilot project, its background, implementation and evaluation.