BLOG - Demonstrating the Research Potential of Scottish LEO: Nursing Graduate Pathways into Employment

Introduction

Little is known about nursing students’ progression into practice. This project marks the first use of the Scottish Longitudinal Educational Outcomes (Scottish LEO) dataset for research purposes and represents an important opportunity to influence workforce planning.  

Using Scottish LEO Dataset

Scottish LEO links Higher Education Statistics Agency data from Scottish universities, covering academic years 2003/04 to 2018/19, with employment records from His Majesty’s Revenue and Customs, which provides taxation, industrial classification, and some benefits data. Taken together, this linkage allows us to track early career trajectories of newly qualified nurses in Scotland, from entry through to completion and into sustained employment. For the first time, we can explore national patterns across more than a decade of graduates, whilst also exploring differences by age, deprivation, domicile, and other demographic characteristics.

As it stands, the dataset provides a valuable resource to policy relevant research. For the first time, we have been able to establish that around two thirds of nursing students are in nursing related employment within a year of graduating and 90 percent in a nursing related occupation. This is a positive story for the profession but also raises valuable questions for the policy community regarding enabling employment.

This study used an early version of the dataset. Further developments in line with the English equivalent would expand potential markedly. For example, the only deprivation marker for Scottish LEO is the Scottish Index of Multiple Deprivation. This is an area-based marker, rather than individual level. Therefore, it can misclassify individuals, particularly in rural settings, which is challenging for Scotland. The dataset would be strengthened, if like English LEO, school level data was linked to allow the use of individual measures such as free school meal status.

Enable data driven evidence

Scottish LEO is proving to be an exciting resource. Analysis is in the early stages, but we are hopeful that the use of this new dataset can provide evidence informed workforce planning across Scotland’s health and social care system.

This work is part of our wider network of projects, which can be found here.