A history of nurse education and the clinical nurse educator

This chapter discusses the potential roles which will be engendered by the new Nursing and Midwifery Council standards and framework for nurse education. Woven throughout the account will be the clinical nurse educator roles which have fulfilled the need for student nurses to receive clinical training and education in practice. The beginning of apprenticeship nurse education appears to be a good starting point, whichever explanation is selected for this phenomenon. The General Nursing Council syllabus and final examination instructions were highly prescriptive to provide national conformity of education and achievement. This included the use of a nationally agreed “nurse’s chart” which was designed to record when the probationer had achieved proficiency in a list of procedures. A logical consequence of single status for initial registration was that nurse educators, who had for decades been divided into clinical teacher and nurse tutors, should both be given the same status.