Students who start the vocational training in Nursing from next academic year will be able to start working as a ‘basic nurse’ after graduation. This is a new professional profile, with which the federal government wants to work on various profiles to be able to cope with future care tasks.
In Belgium, there are two types of nursing courses. The Bachelor’s program at the university of applied sciences takes four years, the graduate nursing program (higher professional education HBO5) takes three years in Flanders. About 40 percent of all nurses active in Flanders followed a HBO5 training.
Our country was declared in default by Europe specifically for those courses within higher vocational education in Flanders. Should our country be convicted, this could also have consequences for the practice of nursing by professionals in our country, warns Minister of Health Frank Vandenbroucke (Vooruit). His amendment to the law, which received the green light from the Council of Ministers on Friday, must accommodate European objections.
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We will need many, and especially diverse, personnel to fulfill all the different care tasks, ranging from the intensive care unit in a hospital to residential care centers or home care.
At the same time, Vandenbroucke wants to use the reform to prepare the organization of healthcare personnel for the future. As is known, the number of elderly people will increase sharply in the coming years, with all the associated consequences for care needs. “We will need many, and especially diverse, personnel to fulfill all the different care tasks, ranging from the intensive care unit in a hospital to residential care centers or home care.”
That is why the minister believes it is important to valorise both the graduate and the bachelor’s programme. Different training conditions will apply to basic nurses than to “nurses responsible for general care”, who have completed the bachelor’s degree. According to the Royal Decree that is now on the table, basic nurses can autonomously practice nursing in less complex situations. In more complex situations, cooperation with the nurse responsible for general care, or the doctor if there is no VVAZ member of the team, is mandatory.
‘Clinical nurse researcher’
The competencies for this new profile will be further defined in the coming weeks. Finally, Vandenbroucke wants to add an extra position in nursing with the amendment to the law: the clinical nurse researcher. It concerns a responsible general care nurse with a doctorate in nursing sciences. The design is now being tested in Europe.
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