Care home education facilitators (CHEFs)

The Care Home Education Facilitators (CHEFs) are a national network of registered nurses that support learning in practice by working with staff within care home practice learning environments, primarily for older adults.

They work alongside other partners in practice education such as Practice Education Facilitators (PEFs) and Practice Education Leads. Practice education involves teaching and learning that happens in practice or work-based settings.

Who funds the role?

The CHEFs posts are funded from NHS Education for Scotland and employed by a Health board.

What do we do?

The principle aims of the CHEF role are to:

enhance the quality of the care home learning environment by supporting the education and development needs of staff to effectively support students within this setting.
contribute to the quality of care provided for older people in care homes through sign posting practice learning opportunities for nurses and support staff.
support the development of both new and experienced practice supervisors and practice assessors and those in wider practice education support roles.
contribute to collaborative working between the Care Homes, the NHS and Education Institutions.
maximise the contribution that care homes make to the development of the future nursing workforce across sector

The CHEF role is to provide practitioners with the support they need, in accordance with:

Being a CHEF

As a registered nurse, midwife or health care support worker, evidence is required of continuing professional development. The CHEFs help facilitate this for staff working in care homes, by signposting them to learning and development resources available locally and nationally.

As part of their pre-registration university programme, every student nurse needs opportunities and time to learn, practice their skills and build links between their theoretical knowledge and practice - in Care Home settings - known as practice learning environments. The CHEFs facilitate nurses and other suitably prepared staff to undertake student supervision and assessment, as practice supervisors or practice assessors, which are the NMC designated roles in practice learning environments.

NES PEF/CHEF National Priorities

Alongside this core CHEF function, every year a number of national priorities are identified by NES, NHS Boards practice education leads and higher education institutions colleagues, to enable the correct response to regulatory and policy drivers.

Quality Management of the Practice Learning Environment (QMPLE)

The CHEFs are required to establish, develop and co-ordinate audit and evaluation of placement learning, and to ensure systems are in place to resolve emerging issues.

The Quality Standards for Practice Learning (QSPL) have been created so that learners and those individuals and organisations who support them understand their responsibilities and expectations in relation to practice based learning. CHEF’s support staff to ensure that these standards are met through completion of regular educational audits. This information is contained within The Quality Management of the Practice Learning Environment (QMPLE) web resource. The QMPLE web resource provides access to and reporting of data relating to the quality of nursing and midwifery practice learning experiences.

Contact us

nursing&midwifery@nes.scot.nhs.uk

Last updated: 25/09/2020