Specialist community public health nurses: readiness for practice

This article outlines the perceptions of specialist community public health nurses (SCPHN) (health visitors, school nurses and sexual health advisors) on their readiness for practice as a qualified health visitor, school nurse or sexual health advisor entering part 3 of the Nursing and Midwifery Council register. It discusses overall development of students who have completed the BSc(Hons)/Postgraduate Diploma SCPHN programme using the medium of art to depict students' thoughts on readiness to practice as a SCPHN. A thematic approach was taken to identify that a transformative change had taken place for students as a result of completing a 52-week SCPHN programme. Discussion included return on investment for the NHS organisation and student, alongside the development of the SCPHN attributes. The article concludes that SCPHN students had subtly transformed their perception of their future role and there was a difference between SCPHN perceptions of the role at the beginning of the programme in comparison to that at the end of the programme.