Studies by the University of Cumbria and other colleagues in Europe indicate that the mobility of student nurses across Europe is being impeded.

The lack of an integrated clinical assessment for Europe is leading to possible wage inflation and increased unemployment across the nursing sector.

The work, developed from the Thematic European Nursing Network (TENN) and funded by the European Commission, was facilitated by Dr. Carol Marrow, Reader in International Nursing Development at the University of Cumbria's School of Nursing and Midwifery.

Dr. Marrow explains: "The problem with the education of student nurses across Europe is that the curricula are different and in particular the clinical assessment strategies. Hence, if a student on a nursing programme would like to study in another country - they cannot always be clinically assessed because of this difference. This therefore impedes the mobility of both student and qualified nurses across Europe."

This effectively means that Nurses' mobility across Europe is being restricted and this, it could be argued, restricts the application of European employment laws in the Nursing profession.

Dr. Marrow argues that there are possible solutions to this problem. "This issue could be rectified by nursing curricula that are embedded with similar principles/activities and in particular assessment strategies. One way could be the use of 'Portfolios of Evidence' which enable the student to collect evidence to show that they have achieved the learning outcomes of a particular activity or clinical placement."

Dr. Marrow is currently continuing a further study in to defining a system of clinical supervision in collaboration with a Portuguese University.