Legal and pedagogical prerequisites for clinical training in Swedish nursing education with a Nordic outlook

Abstract

Nursing education of good quality and with a high throughput is an important welfare issue to meet the need for competence supply in health care. In order to increase the number of clinical training positions, access to health care organizations where the extensive practical part of the nurse education can be carried out is required. The universities have a responsibility to arrange clinical training for nurse students in accordance with law, however practically carried out in health care. This article examines the complex legal and pedagogical conditions for clinical training in Swedish nursing education. A brief overview of the conditions in Denmark, Finland and Norway is also presented. An interdisciplinary approach is applied, combining legal method and analysis of pedagogical development research and the local regulation of nursing education at the universities. The authors conclude that the conditions for clinical training in the Nordic countries are governed by agreements between the universities and health care institutions. This requires an extensive cooperation between the parties, not least from the perspective of legal certainty for students. Clinical training must also fulfil the requirements according to EU law, which regulates nursing education in detail and requires at least half of the stipulated educational duration standards to be carried out clinically in direct contact with patients in health care. The conclusion is that EU law restricts methods for carrying out clinical training such as simulation, even though simulation is applied in many of the member states and can be justified both from a pedagogical and patient safety perspective.