More than 70 nurses who took part in the course took the OSCE exam earlier this year and achieved a 95 per cent pass rate. This compares to the national average of 65 per cent. Nurses from around the country celebrated their achievement with a graduation ceremony held in Birmingham, sponsored by Straumann.
Supported by the in-house mydentist academy, the dental nurse programme provides students with a fully paid position in mydentist practices. They are aided by a clinical mentor and given access to e-learning materials and online and offline workshops to meet and learn from other trainees.
On passing the course and registering with the GDC, the nurses were also the first to benefit from mydentist’s new £500 graduation bonus for newly qualified nurses, which was announced as part of its industry-leading career progression programme. The programme, announced earlier this year, is a £2.5million investment with pay increases for mydentist’s nurses and the introduction of five levels of nursing, each with guaranteed minimum national pay rates.
Following in the graduates’ footsteps, a further 700 student nurses are currently enrolled on the programme across the UK.
Mark Jones, head of the mydentist academy, said, “We moved away from offering apprenticeships because we believed we could offer higher quality training and support via our own programme.
“We’re thrilled that the efforts of the students, practice teams and the academy staff has paid off with 95 per cent of our first intake of nurses passing their exams.”
Rachel Peterson, dental nurse from Scarborough who attended the graduation, added, “It was an intense course so I was grateful for all of the support I could access through mydentist. That included the chance to do mock exams, have access to the online academy resources and workshops at the academy in Manchester where we could meet and share experiences with the other trainees.
“It’s my ambition now to be a mentor for somebody else on the programme.”
More information about mydentist’s nurse training are available on its careers website www.mydentistcareers.co.uk