King's & Chelsea & Westminster first for HIV education

The Florence Nightingale School of Nursing & Midwifery at King’s and Chelsea & Westminster NHS Foundation Trust recently launched their first jointly provided HIV course for qualified nurses.

The week long course is designed to provide the foundation of knowledge for nurses working with patients who are living with HIV.

This collaboration was led by Jane Bruton, Clinical Nurse Lead for HIV at Chelsea & Westminster and Visiting Lecturer with King’s, and Dr Edward Purssell, Senior Lecturer at King’s. Jane will be jointly facilitating and developing the course and will also teach about HIV on undergraduate and postgraduate courses.

It is also hoped that by the next academic year a HIV module will have been developed as part of the Master’s in Advanced Practice Nursing. This would be the first HIV Master’s level module in the country and a fantastic opportunity for the increasing number of HIV Advanced Nurse Practitioners in the UK.

Dr Edward Pursell said: ‘HIV continues to be a major health problem, and we are committed to playing our part in tackling it. This partnership demonstrates the commitment of both institutions to this, and we hope it is just the start in developing a centre of HIV education and research excellence.’