The student-supported community nursing pilot was developed and a pilot was implemented in the Airedale Community Neighbourhood Team, delivered through a partnership between Airedale NHS Foundation Trust, the University of Bradford, and the West Yorkshire Integrated Care Board.
The protocol set out three aims:
• Attract, train, and retain the future nursing workforce in Community Neighbourhood Teams.
• Enhance patient care through the delivery of high-quality education.
• Ease service pressures by transforming placements into a valuable resource rather than a burden on teams.
The model works by embedding small cohorts of student nurses directly into community nursing teams, supported by an embedded facilitator (at a 1:4 ratio). Students rotate through routine care-home rounds and supervised community tasks, gradually increasing their independence and responsibility. Structured induction, live documentation, regular reflection (via Lightning Reports), and targeted teaching sessions ensure safety, learning, and continuous feedback. Leadership sponsorship and sustained stakeholder engagement were built in to create legitimacy and protection for teams trialling the approach.
The strategic driver for this work was to redress the imbalance in nurse training opportunities, with the vast majority (80%) of placements concentrated in acute settings and leading most staff to remain in hospital roles. The aim was to create high-quality, sustainable, and attractive training environments in community settings that would inspire and retain the next generation of nurses. While the pressures on district nursing, such as rising caseloads, high vacancy rates, and limited placement capacity, are real and acknowledged, this initiative was not conceived as a solution to those operational challenges. Rather, it was designed as an enabler of the NHS Long Term Workforce Plan’s ambition to shift care from acute to community settings, by expanding access to meaningful and engaging training experiences outside the hospital environment.
The Report titled “Evaluation of the Community Nursing Pilot: Expanding Placement Capacity, Supporting Services, and Growing the Future Workforce” is available to view below.
