Partnership work in placements.

High-quality practice placements are fundamental to learning nursing skills. This article reports on how a lecturer, mentor and student nurse developed and managed a placement together to achieve the Nursing and Midwifery Council outcomes for the foundation year of a pre-registration nursing programme. This involved establishing the mentor's expertise so she could support learning, liaising with different departments, and ensuring appropriate learning opportunities. We looked at how the lecturer contributed to developing the placement, how the student's motivation contributed to her learning, and why it was important to evaluate the impact of the placement on learning and on the service. We also examined implications for the design and implementation of placements.