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Dr Lou Hunt

Job: Senior Lecturer

Faculty: Business and Law

School/department: School of Nursing and Midwifery

Address: ÉëÒ÷Ö®Íõ, The Gateway, Leicester, LE1 9BH

T: 0116 207 8577

E: Lou.hunt@dmu.ac.uk

W:

 

Personal profile

Dr Lou Hunt is a senior lecturer at ÉëÒ÷Ö®Íõ in the Faculty of Health and Life Sciences. She is a registered nurse and practiced in orthopaedic, thoracic and ENT surgery before becoming a Clinical Teacher and subsequently a Lecturer Practitioner. She has always been keenly interested in both how healthcare students learn and how they are assessed in practical environments. She was part of a team which pioneered the concept of Clinical Placement Support Units in the 1990s.

Lou is currently both the lead for mentorship and the Co-programme Leader for Nursing Associates in the Leicester School of Nursing and Midwifery. In 2014 she was awarded a PhD for her thesis entitled ‘Failing Securely: Enabling mentors to fail underperforming student nurses in practical assessments’. She was a member of the Nursing and Midwifery Council Thought Leadership Group which worked to develop new Standards for Nursing and is currently a member of the Midlands and East Practical Assessment Group who are developing a shared Practical Assessment document across the region.

Her Twitter profile, @LAHunt1, lists her as ‘an advocate for mentors’.

Research interests/expertise

Clinical mentorship, supervision, coaching and practical assessment; Preceptorship and transition of students to Registrants; App Development for mentoring and supervision in practice; Haptic suit which provides immediate feedback in moving and handling education and training; Grounded Theory methodology. 

Areas of teaching

Clinical mentorship, supervision, coaching and practical assessment

Qualitative research methods

Clinical Skills

Ethics and Professional Practice

ENT Nursing

Qualifications

Registered Nurse (Adult), RCNT, Cert Ed, Dip MIO, BSc(Hons), PhD

ÉëÒ÷Ö®Íõ taught

Foundation Degree Science: Nursing Assocaite, BSc(Hons) Nursing, BSc(Hons)Health and Professional Practice, MSc Nursing

Membership of external committees

NMC Thought Leadership Group 2016 - 2018. Development of new Professional Standards for the education of nurses.

Pan Midlands and East Practical Assessment Group 2018 onwards. Development of Regional Practical Assessment Documents and processes

Membership of professional associations and societies

Royal College of Nursing 1980 onwards

RCN Education Forum 2008 onwards

Clinical Nurse Educators Network 2014 onwards

Professional licences and certificates

Registered Nurse

Projects

Assessment of student nurses in practice: A comparison of theoretical and practical assessment results in the United Kingdom

Case studies

Following publication of my PhD thesis and subsequent publications, which focussed on how mentors can be supported when working with students who are struggling, I was invited to sit on the Nursing and Midwifery Council Thought Leadership Group and advise on development of new professional standards for nurses. A number of recommendations from my study have been accepted by the NMC and form parts of the new standards. These are:

  • Split the mentor role so that students have a supervisor and an assessor to reduce role conflict
  • Simplify professional standards/competencies/proficiencies and write them in a way which is accessible to the public
  • Enhance practice partner influence in practical assessment policies and processes at local level

As part of the work for the NMC I convened and facilitated a sub-group of nurse educators who had undertaken research around practical assessment and drew together the findings and inform these studies, providing the NMC with concise insight into the issues which needed to be addressed and potential solutions.

I have also worked with a colleague to develop an "App", now available for both Apple and Android mobiles in the app store, which addresses the need identified in the study, for accessible support for mentors in practice.

I am currently working with the Pan Midlands and East Group to develop a standard regional Practical Assessment Document which was a further recommendation of the study.

ORCID number