Education of children's nurses in Ireland: an update

The first teaching hospital for sick children in Great Britain and Ireland opened in Dublin in 1821. From then, the development of sick children's nursing in Ireland followed a similar path to that in many other countries until a national report in 2000 recognised that post registration pathways alone were unlikely to meet future health service needs for suitably qualified and flexible children's nurses. In 2006, a four and a half year integrated children's and general nursing pre registration degree programme started on four sites. At the same time, the existing 18 month post registration course was replaced with an accelerated one year diploma programme. The full integration of children's nursing into third level at both pre and post registration level was a welcome development in Ireland. Further work is under way to address the remaining educational challenges: post graduate and doctoral programmes, preparation of advanced nurse practitioners and continuing professional education for qualified children's nurses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]; Copyright of Paediatric Nursing is the property of RCN Publishing Company and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)