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10 marks of the 100 in Part B, which runs for 150 minutes.
Platform 6 is about the system rather than the patient in front of you. Something went wrong, or nearly did, and the question is what a nurse does so that it does not happen to the next person.
What this section asks about
Risk assessment in a range of care settings
Reporting incidents and near misses, and the duty of candour that goes with them
Audit, improvement methodology and how quality is measured
Health and safety law, including manual handling, sharps and hazardous substances
Infection prevention as a governance question, not only a technique
Managing risk without removing a person’s independence
Where the marks go
10 marks of the 100 in Part B, which runs for 150 minutes. The NMC splits this section across the levels of Bloom's taxonomy:
Remember and understand: 4
Apply and analyse: 3
Evaluate and create: 3
Where candidates lose marks
Treating a near miss as nothing to report. A near miss is the cheapest information a system ever gets.
Reaching for restriction. Managing risk means weighing safety against dignity and independence, with the person.
Blaming an individual where the question is describing a system failure.
Sample questions
From our bank, with the explanation as a student sees it. These particular questions are kept out of the mock papers, so reading them here does not use anything up.
Sample 1 of 2
A 38-year-old male patient on an acute medical ward develops an unexpected, life-threatening anaphylactic reaction following administration of a newly licensed intravenous antimicrobial agent with no previous allergy recorded. Which regulatory reporting scheme must the staff nurse complete to notify UK medicine safety regulators of this adverse event?
CMedicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency Yellow Card reportAnswer
DChild Death Overview Panel statutory notification
Why
The MHRA Yellow Card scheme is the statutory UK system for reporting suspected adverse drug reactions, particularly serious reactions to newly licensed black triangle medications. Care Quality Commission Regulation 18 notifications are submitted for serious injuries resulting from care delivery, while Section 42 referrals address adult safeguarding concerns.
NMC Standards of Proficiency Platform 6
Sample 2 of 2
A 68-year-old man recovering from a femoral nerve block is admitted to a neuro-rehabilitation unit to begin mobility retraining. The adult inpatient on a rehabilitation ward requires a validated numerical scoring assessment of gait disturbance, secondary diagnoses, and use of ambulatory aids to predict inpatient slip and trip risk. Which validated assessment tool should the nurse complete?
Select one answer.
ABedside Water Swallow Test
BFracture Risk Assessment Tool
CMorse Fall ScaleAnswer
DStratify Falls Risk Score
Why
A scoring tool that specifically assigns numerical values to gait disturbance, secondary diagnoses, and ambulatory aid use is the Morse Fall Scale. The Stratify Falls Risk Score would instead be indicated if the unit required a five-item tool focusing specifically on visual impairment, agitation, toileting frequency, transfer ability, and fall history.
NMC Standards of Proficiency Platform 6
The proficiency statements behind this section
Questions in this section are written against the NMC's Future Nurse standards. These are the 12 statements it draws from. You are not expected to memorise them, and they are worth reading once so the language on the paper is familiar. The ones marked are patient safety proficiencies, which every paper has to reach a minimum of.
6.1Understand and apply the principles of health and safety legislation and regulations and maintain safe work and care environmentssafety
6.2Understand the relationship between safe staffing levels, appropriate skills mix, safety and quality of care, recognising risks to public protection and quality of care, escalating concerns appropriately
6.3Comply with local and national frameworks, legislation and regulations for assessing, managing and reporting risks, ensuring the appropriate action is taken
6.4Demonstrate an understanding of the principles of improvement methodologies, participate in all stages of audit activity and identify appropriate quality improvement
6.5Demonstrate the ability to accurately undertake risk assessments in a range of care settings, using a range of contemporary assessment and improvement toolssafety
6.6Identify the need to make improvements and proactively respond to potential hazards that may affect the safety of people
6.7Understand how the quality and effectiveness of nursing care can be evaluated in practice, and demonstrate how to use service delivery evaluation and audit findings to bring about continuous improvement
6.8Demonstrate an understanding of how to identify, report and critically reflect on near misses, critical incidents, major incidents and serious adverse events in order to learn from them and influence their future practice
6.9Work with people, their families, carers and colleagues to develop effective improvement strategies for quality and safety, sharing feedback and learning from positive outcomes and experiences, mistakes and adverse outcomes and experiences
6.10Apply an understanding of the differences between risk aversion and risk management and how to avoid compromising quality of care and health outcomes
6.11Acknowledge the need to accept and manage uncertainty, and demonstrate an understanding of strategies that develop resilience in self and others
6.12Understand the role of registered nurses and other health and care professionals at different levels of experience and seniority when managing and prioritising actions and care in the event of a major incident
Questions people ask
Should a near miss be reported if nobody was harmed?
Yes. It shows where the system nearly failed, which is the point of reporting, and the professional duty of candour applies to what could have caused harm as well as what did.
Is the duty of candour a legal duty or a professional one?
Both. There is a professional duty in the Code and a statutory duty on organisations under the Health and Social Care Act 2008.
Practise this section
Practice is filtered by section, so you can work on this one on its own. Every account gets 10 new questions a day without a card.