The Recommended National Curriculum is a consensus statement of the overarching knowledge, skills and attributes that can be expected of Specialist Community Public Health Nurses delivering health visiting and school nursing services to families, children and young people from age 0-19.
It was developed to reflect the weight of evidence that has become available since the NMC Standards of Proficiency were first developed and published in 2004, as well as the experience of delivering programmes and services in a much diversified UK policy context. It is therefore expected that the curriculum will inform the NMC’s evaluation and review of the Standards of Proficiency as part of its Programme of Change for Education.
It provides a firm basis for future developments in individual higher education institutions and, at a national level as and when the Nursing and Midwifery Council proceeds with its Programme of Change for Education, reviews the Standards for Specialist Community Public Health Nursing.
The curriculum also endorses health visiting and school nursing as a distinctive level and form of practice that warrants regulation, to assure the public of the professional standards that they can expect of registrants prepared for and practising as health visitors and school nurses
The Recommended National Curriculum is a product of a consensus-building partnership between the Institute of Health Visiting (iHV), Unite/Community Practitioner Health Visitor Association (CPHVA), United Kingdom Standing Conference (UKSC), National Forum of School Health Educators (NFSHE), School and Public Health Nurses Association (SAPHNA) and the Royal College of Nursing (RCN).
