Identifying common competences in health and social care: an example of multi-institutional and inter-professional working.

Students taking programmes of study leading to registration as a nurse or other health and social care professional, must be assessed in practice to ensure that they are competent in a range of skills. As practice placements become more difficult to source, the use of inter-professional assessment is becoming an increasingly important facet of assessment for students in health and social care. This paper describes an innovate collaborative project across 5 Higher Education Institutions and 16 professional groups to develop maps to assess communication, team working and ethical practice, three essential competences for all health professionals. The process used to develop each competency map is detailed along with discussion of the consultation process with professional statutory and regulatory bodies, practice based and academic staff and service users and carers. The completed project is evidence of successful multi-institutional and inter-professional working to develop assessment processes which accurately and fairly measure capabilities to help students develop into proficient and effective practitioners.