GPN Academy, partnered by HARTMANN 

Welcome to the GPN Academy personal development area. As a clinician, you will be aware of the need for personal development, and to help you with this, you are advised to have a personal development portfolio.

This should contain your career goals and a realistic plan of what you need to do to get to where you want to be. Indeed, keeping your aims in mind and having SMART (specific, measurable, achievable, relevant and time-based) goals can help give you direction and stay focused, despite busy schedules and pressures at work. In turn, this means you will be better equipped to:

• Communicate effectively both with colleagues and patients
• Overcome challenges
• Make better decisions
• Stay on track.

So, whether you are a new general practice nurse unfamiliar with the business responsibilities of your role, or have been in post for a while and want to take on new challenges and meet new goals, e.g. better communication or educating, this area offers advice and resources to help you achieve your aims. However, if there is something you would like to see, please let us know.

This series of e-learning modules will help to develop your wound care skills while also gaining CPD time. Having read a module, there is the opportunity to reflect on what you have learnt with the accompanying MCQs and then download a certificate as evidence of your individual learning.

These wound care-related articles, which have appeared in the Journal of General Practice Nursing, focus on vital skills needed in day-to-day clinical practice to help improve outcomes for patients with wounds.

GPNs not only need to keep their clinical skills up to date, but also their knowledge of different wound care products. These modules cover all you need to know about a product in one place, with useful summaries of underpinning evidence to support their use in practice. Having read the module, you can also test your knowledge and then log your certificate in the GPN revalidation zone.