Description
Starting your first role as a registered nurse can feel overwhelming — but you don’t have to navigate it alone.
How to Thrive as a Newly Registered Nurse is the ultimate survival guide for newly qualified nurses, packed with practical advice, real-world insights, and confidence-boosting support to help you transition successfully from student to professional practice.
Inside you’ll discover how to:
- Secure the right first nursing post
- Build confidence during your first year
- Prioritise patient care and manage your workload
- Handle escalation, incident reporting, and difficult situations
- Develop leadership and delegation skills
- Plan your future career progression and professional development
Written by experienced educator Carol Forde-Johnston, this fully updated second edition combines expert guidance, practical examples, and honest reflections from newly registered nurses to help you feel prepared, supported, and empowered from day one.
Whether you’re about to qualify or have just started your first nursing role, this is the must-have companion for thriving — not just surviving — in modern nursing.
About the author; Preface to the second edition; Acknowledgements; Abbreviations
1. Choosing and securing your first nursing post
1.1 How to choose your first post
1.2 Your application and personal statement
1.3 Preparing for interviews as a newly registered nurse
2. Structuring your learning during your first three months registered
2.1 What to expect when you start
2.2 How to structure your learning in your first few months registered
3. Understanding the key structures in nursing
3.1 Past structures and influences on today's health care
3.2 Key local and national structures
3.3 Key types of nursing delivery systems
3.4 The differences between nursing roles
4. Understanding safe staffing and patient acuity and dependency tools
4.1 Past methods used to determine staffing levels for nurses
4.2 Staffing today's NHS
4.3 Important safe staffing guidance for nurses
4.4 Workforce planning and acuity and dependency tools
5. Team working: prioritising, delegating and coordinating care
5.1 Support in practice to develop your management and leadership skills
5.2 How to prioritise your care and manage your time
5.3 How to delegate to others
6. Record-keeping, care planning and clinical risk assessment tools
6.1 Past nursing documentation and use of Electronic Health Records today
6.2 The importance of record-keeping
6.3 The difference between 'good' and 'poor' record-keeping
6.4 Individualised care planning
6.5 The importance of clinical risk assessment tools
7. Assessing mental capacity and supporting those declining care
7.1 The case that led to changes in the law
7.2 Supporting an informed choice
7.3 The law and key policies
7.4 Assessing mental capacity
7.5 Making a decision on behalf of someone
7.6 The importance of record-keeping and follow-up
8. Understanding escalation and incident reporting
8.1 Patient deterioration and escalation
8.2 Incident reporting
8.3 De-escalating challenging situations
8.4 How to deal with a patient's death and a deceased body
9. Structuring your future learning and support after preceptorship period
9.1 Proactively structure your learning and development
9.2 What you should expect over the next year and onwards
10. Developing our practice and profession through future nursing research
10.1 Evidence-based practice
10.2 Research funding opportunities
10.3 Publishing your work in future
Index
Brilliant
‘will definitely be keeping this book close to hand when i qualify.' Amazon reviewer
