During the Birmingham Conference in 2003, the National Associations had the opportunity to meet and discuss a collaborative project: ‘Developing a competency framework for renal nurses’ as part of the European Network of Renal Care Association (ENRCA).

There are currently 11 National Associations working together that have undertaken and completed surveys of 10% of renal units in their country identifying the skills and tasks of renal nurses. The results were presented during the Vienna Conference (2005) and can be found in the Members-only section of this website (Research Projects).

The final format of the competency project will have a multidisciplinary competencies approach. A pilot study of the competencies has recently been undertaken within haemodialysis units in several European countries, with the final document to be published in 2006.

The main aim of the ENRCA project is to provide a forum for National Associations and the EDTNA/ERCA to collaborate on specified projects. The EDTNA/ERCA proposes that the development of a competency framework is an ideal project to work on together as it is relevant to all renal healthcare professionals.

Firstly, it is important to define what is meant by the term competency. There are two main themes of competencies and they can be defined as either task-based (I.e. descriptive of a task or skill) or behavioural (i.e. identify certain characteristics). Within daily health care professional clinical work, competencies tend to be a combination of both behaviour and skills. By developing a competency framework, it is possible to identify all of the competencies (i.e. skills) required to perform a job effectively (Whiddett et al., 1999). This tool will be a practical and easy to use when assessing staff within the clinical area and there are many benefits as listed below:

Benefits of developing and using a competency framework:

• Training and development of staff
• Recruitment and retention of staff
• Performance Review
• Manage poor performance
• Motivate staff and reward good performance
• Reinforce organisational values and culture
• Audit
• All care provided by staff is evidence-based
• Ensure a quality service is provided to patients

Aim of Project:

• To develop a European Competency Framework for nephrology nurses
• In the future, to expand this framework for other healthcare professionals, such as renal technicians, social workers and dietitians.

Result of Project:

All the competencies are multidisciplinary in their approach and cover haemodialysis, peritoneal dialysis, renal transplantation, general ward and pre dialysis issues. The completed document is in English and sooner in Portuguese and we hope that National Associations will take the work forward and translate the document into their preferred language.

We hope that this project will be able to provide an adaptable booklet which can be translated into different languages and modified by different countries for use in renal units across Europe, for the benefit of both staff and patients.

Assessors Guidelines (English)
Competency Book (English)

National Associations involved in the project:

CNNA (Croatia)			EDTNA/ERCA
SDTNA (Slovenia)			APEDT (Portugal)
DNNCYNA (Cyprus)			BRS (United Kingdom)
HENNA (Greece)			INNA (Israel)
ORPADT (Flanders)			TNNA (Turkey)
SEDEN (Spain)