What Happens If You're Sick on Nursing Placement?
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Getting sick during placement is one of those things you probably don't think much about until it actually happens. Then you wake up feeling awful, realise you're supposed to be on the ward in an hour and immediately start thinking about your practice hours.
Do I still go in? Who do I call? Will I have to make the shift back? Is this going to affect my placement?
The good news is that being sick doesn't automatically mean you're in trouble or that you've failed anything. Student nurses get ill just like everyone else. What matters is knowing what you're supposed to do when it happens and understanding what that absence might mean for your practice learning.
If you're sick, don't just turn up because you're worried about your hours
Practice hours matter, but so does being fit to be in a clinical environment. If you're genuinely unwell, particularly if you have symptoms that could be infectious, going into placement simply because you don't want to lose the hours isn't necessarily the right thing to do.
Healthcare environments include people who may be particularly vulnerable to infection. Your placement provider may also have specific infection prevention requirements about when staff and students should stay away from clinical areas and when they can return. Rather than trying to decide whether you're "sick enough" to miss placement based on your practice hour total, follow the sickness and absence guidance you've been given. If you're unsure whether you should attend, contact the appropriate person and ask.
Who do you need to tell?
This varies between universities and placement providers, which is why it's worth finding out the procedure during your placement induction rather than waiting until you're ill. You will usually need to notify your placement area and your university may also require you to report the absence separately.
Your placement might have a particular number to call, a time by which absence needs to be reported or instructions about who you should speak to. Your university may have its own absence form or reporting system as well, so follow both processes if that's what your programme requires.
It's also worth saving the relevant numbers somewhere easy to find. Searching through emails at 5:30 in the morning while feeling terrible is not the ideal time to discover you have no idea who you're supposed to phone.
What happens to the practice hours you miss?
If you're absent from placement, you can't record those hours as completed practice learning. Under current Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) standards, pre-registration nursing programmes include 2,300 hours of practice learning as part of the programme requirements (NMC, 2024).
This is why sickness absence can matter. Your university has to make sure you've completed the requirements of its NMC-approved programme before you can successfully complete your nursing degree. That doesn't mean one sick day suddenly puts your whole degree in danger, but your practice-learning hours need to be accurately recorded so that any shortfall can be identified and managed appropriately.
If you're wondering what actually counts towards those 2,300 hours, we've covered that separately in Student Nurse Practice Hours Explained: What Actually Counts?
Will you have to make the hours back?
This is where things become less straightforward because there isn't one answer that applies to every student nurse in the UK. Universities have their own arrangements for managing absence and recovering practice learning within their NMC-approved programmes. The NMC sets the education standards programmes must meet, but it doesn't give every university an identical sickness-retrieval timetable.
So you might hear one student say they had to make back every hour they missed, while someone else tells you their university dealt with it completely differently. That doesn't necessarily mean either of them is wrong. They may simply be studying on different programmes.
If you do have hours that need to be recovered, your university should tell you how this needs to happen. Don't arrange additional placement shifts yourself unless you've been told that you can. Practice learning needs to take place within appropriate arrangements for supervision and assessment, so adding yourself to next Sunday's rota isn't necessarily a valid way of retrieving missed hours.
Can you fail placement because you've been sick?
Being absent because you're ill and failing a practice assessment are not the same thing. Your practice assessment considers whether you've achieved the proficiencies and learning outcomes expected at your stage of the programme.
However, absence can become relevant if you miss enough placement that you haven't completed the required practice learning or haven't had sufficient opportunity to demonstrate what you need to achieve. Missing one shift is obviously very different from being absent for a significant part of a placement.
If sickness is starting to affect your attendance regularly, speak to your university rather than waiting until your final assessment to find out what happens. There may be processes for recovering practice learning or supporting you through a longer period of illness, but these will depend on your programme and individual circumstances.
What if you've got vomiting, diarrhoea or something infectious?
If you have vomiting, diarrhoea or another potentially infectious illness, follow your placement provider's infection prevention and return-to-placement guidance. Don't assume you're safe to return simply because you feel better.
Healthcare providers have infection prevention and control policies because illnesses can spread quickly in clinical environments, particularly where patients may be more vulnerable to infection. The exact procedure and return criteria that apply to you should come from your placement provider, university or occupational health service.
The same principle applies to other potentially infectious illnesses. Check the guidance that applies to your placement rather than relying on something another student was told at a different hospital.
What if you're going to be off for longer?
A couple of missed shifts and a longer period of sickness are obviously different situations. If you're going to be absent for a while, keep your university informed.
NMC education standards require approved education institutions and their practice-learning partners to have appropriate systems for supporting students and managing practice learning. Depending on what's happening, your university may need to discuss your practice hours, placement progression or support needs with you. There may also be occupational health or student-support processes available.
The important thing is not to disappear from placement for several weeks while worrying about it on your own. The earlier your university knows there's a problem, the earlier they can tell you what it actually means for your programme.
Keep track of your practice hours
You don't need to obsessively calculate your remaining practice hours every time you miss a shift, but you should know roughly where you stand. Check your practice record periodically and make sure completed shifts have actually been recorded correctly.
If you've had several periods of sickness, ask whether you currently have a practice-learning deficit and, if so, what the plan is for addressing it. That's much more reliable than trying to calculate it yourself from old rotas, and it avoids the much bigger headache of discovering a significant discrepancy near the end of your course.
One thing to do at the start of every placement
When you get your placement induction, find out the sickness procedure. Save the placement telephone number in your phone and find out who you contact if you're going to be absent, when you need to contact them, whether your university needs to be notified separately and what you're expected to do before returning.
It takes about two minutes and saves a surprising amount of stress if you ever wake up ill before an early shift.
And if you do get sick...
Report it properly, make sure the absence is recorded accurately and follow any infection prevention or occupational health advice about returning. Keep an eye on your practice hours and if there is a shortfall, let your university tell you how it needs to be managed rather than trying to create your own make-up shifts.
Practice learning is a major part of your nursing degree, so attendance does matter. But becoming ill occasionally is also a fairly normal part of being a human being who spends a considerable amount of time in healthcare environments.
Being sick for a shift isn't the problem. Not reporting it properly or ignoring a growing practice-hour deficit can be.
References
Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) (2024) Standards for pre-registration nursing programmes. London: NMC. NMC: Standards for pre-registration nursing programmes.
Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) (2018, republished 2023) Standards for student supervision and assessment. London: NMC. Effective from 28 January 2019 and republished in April 2023 without substantive changes. NMC: Standards for student supervision and assessment.
Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) (2024) Standards framework for nursing and midwifery education. London: NMC. NMC: Standards framework for nursing and midwifery education.
Bleepbook note: Sickness reporting, infection prevention requirements, occupational health procedures and arrangements for recovering missed practice learning vary between universities and placement providers. Always follow the policies for your own programme and placement area.