The ‘courage’ to shift to an eportfolio format was highlighted in a positive Nursing Council audit of Waikato DHB’s professional development and recognition programme (PDRP).
Cheryl Atherfold, associate director of nursing for the DHB’s Professional Development Unit that manages the PDRP and other programmes, said the Nursing Council audit result “spoke volumes” for the work done by the the PDRP team in recent years. She said the PDRP was awarded five years approval with no corrective actions or recommendations required.
The Waikato DHB PDRP is one of more than 25 programmes offered by DHBs, private hospitals, Plunket, and community health providers that are regularly audited by the Nursing Council to ensure that nurses assessed under the PDRPs meet the Council’s continuing competence requirements.
Atherfold said the unit had four staff members directly responsible for the PDRP programme but it also relied on the support of nurse and midwife educators and assessors across the DHB.
Nursing Council comments included “strong leadership” in managing quality improvement over the previous two years and the “courage” to move to eportfolio submission for PDRPs and the benefits that had brought to both applicants and assessors. It said the eportfolios were of a “high standard and clearly demonstrate the Council continuing competence requirements are met”.
PDRPs are voluntary programmes that are also used by their parent organisations to develop and recognise the expertise of nurses in clinical practice and – in the case of DHBs – can also be linked to salary allowances. Nurses that are part of a Nursing Council-approved PDRP are exempt from the recertification audit which about 1000 nurses are randomly chosen to undergo each year.
