In short and in plain language
Nursing training includes a placement in home care. Trainees from other providers come to you as guests.
This is a good chance. The trainees get to know you as an employer.
The article describes a page just for this placement. It shows the schedule, the working hours and who guides the trainees.
Nursing schools can ask to work with you through the page. Trainees can sign up for the time after their exam. This needs their consent.
We build this page as part of your careers page.
Every trainee on the path to becoming a registered nurse in Germany spends 400 hours (Annex 7 PflAPrV) in outpatient acute and long-term care. That applies to the trainee of a hospital just as much as to the trainee of a care home: the placement is mandatory, not optional. At the same time, only 12 per cent (Destatis) of trainees with a new contract have a home care service as the provider of their practical training. Most future nurses therefore get to know home care as guests - for a few weeks, on the rounds, alongside a practice instructor. For a care service looking for qualified staff, this is the longest trial period available without an employment contract. It is rarely used. Most careers pages address qualified nurses and, at most, applicants for the service's own training places. Someone who did a placement will find neither the schedule nor the name of their instructor there, and no way to put their name down for the time after the final exam. This article describes a dedicated page for the mandatory placement: for nursing schools and training providers looking for a partner, and for trainees who want to know what to expect. With a schedule, practical instruction, working hours, a partnership enquiry and a shortlist for applying after the exam.
Key takeaways
- Every nursing training programme includes a mandatory placement of 400 hours in outpatient acute and long-term care (Annex 7 PflAPrV), out of a total of 2,500 hours of practical training (Annex 7 PflAPrV).
- Only 12 per cent of trainees with a new contract in 2025 have a home care provider (Destatis). All others get to know home care as guests on their mandatory placement - and with it a potential employer.
- The page addresses two audiences: nursing schools and providers that depend on cooperation agreements (Section 6 subsection 4 PflBG), and trainees who want to know the meeting point, the round and the hours in advance.
- Practical instruction covers at least 10 per cent of placement time (Section 4 subsection 1 PflAPrV), so at least 40 hours for 400 hours. Whoever instructs belongs on the page with name and qualification.
- The home care placement is meant to take place before the interim exam (Section 7 subsection 3 PflBG). At least the final third of training, one year full time (Section 6 subsection 1 PflBG), passes before the final exam - a shortlist with consent keeps the contact.
- Whether the page works shows in three figures you collect yourself: partnership enquiries per half-year, shortlist entries per placement cohort and applications from people who previously did a placement with you.
Few trainees of your own, many guests
The German training and examination regulation for the nursing professions sets out practical training to the hour. Annex 7 PflAPrV distributes a total of 2,500 hours (Annex 7 PflAPrV) across individual placements, and three of them are mandatory placements in the general care settings: inpatient acute care, inpatient long-term care and outpatient acute and long-term care, with 400 hours each (Annex 7 PflAPrV). Under Section 7 subsection 1 no. 3 PflBG, the home care placement takes place in outpatient care services licensed under Book XI of the Social Code and under Section 37 SGB V - in other words, in exactly the services that are looking for nurses today. A hospital cannot provide this placement in house, and neither can a care home. Both need a partner for it, year after year and for every new intake.
The training statistics of the Federal Statistical Office show how large this demand is. In 2025, around 63,900 trainees (Destatis) signed a new contract to train as a registered nurse. Around half (Destatis) of them complete the practical part of their training in a hospital, 36 per cent (Destatis) in inpatient care facilities and only 12 per cent (Destatis) in home care services. Arithmetically, for every trainee a home care service trains itself, there are about seven more who have to complete the home care placement somewhere else. Spread across 15,549 home care services nationwide (Destatis, 2023), this is not a side issue but a steady stream of people who see your working day from the inside before they apply anywhere.
The arithmetic behind it
Two audiences on one page
A page on the mandatory placement has two readerships with different questions. Nursing schools and providers of practical training are looking for a cooperation partner. This cooperation is built into the law: the nursing school, the provider of practical training and the other facilities involved in practical training work together on the basis of cooperation agreements (Section 6 subsection 4 PflBG). Whoever plans placements there wants to know whether you have places, in which periods, with what practical instruction and whom to call. Trainees, by contrast, usually arrive only once the assignment is fixed. They ask where to go in the morning, whether they need a car, how the first day works and who will instruct them. Many are young: 51 per cent (Destatis) of new contracts in 2025 were signed by people aged 21 or younger. They read the page on a smartphone, often the evening before their first day.
| Question | Nursing school or provider | Trainee on placement |
|---|---|---|
| When do they visit the page? | When planning placements, often months ahead | After the assignment, usually shortly before day one |
| What do they want to know? | Places, periods, practical instruction, contract | Meeting point, hours, travel, schedule |
| What do they decide? | Whether a cooperation agreement is concluded | Whether they want to come back after the exam |
| Which contact fits? | Partnership enquiry with period and number of places | Direct line to the practice instructor, shortlist |
| Which tone works? | Factual, with legal bases | Concrete, with names and times |
Serving both groups on one page works if the entry separates them early: two jump links in the page header, "For nursing schools" and "For trainees on placement", and below them two sections that do not copy each other. The careers page carries a visible link to this page; in the menu, one entry under careers is enough. How a careers page for care services is structured overall is described on our service page. The service's own training remains separate: if you will train nursing assistants yourself from 2027, you will find the structure for that in the article Nursing assistant training 2027: winning trainees through your website. The placement page is aimed at people who are already in training, just with someone else.
The placement week by week
Trainees want to know in advance what happens in which week. At a full-time week of 40 hours, 400 hours (Annex 7 PflAPrV) equal ten weeks; with shorter weekly hours or with classroom blocks in between, the placement spreads over more calendar weeks. Training alternates between classroom sections and practical training anyway (Section 1 subsection 3 PflAPrV). A sample schedule on the page does not replace a training plan, but it takes away the uncertainty before the first day and shows the nursing school that the placement is planned rather than run on the side. It describes phases, not timesheets, and it says honestly when the trainee takes on responsibility.
- Weeks 1 and 2: ride along and settle in. First day with meeting point, introduction to the round plan, key management, documentation and hygiene. The trainee rides along with her practice instructor, gets to know the clients on the round and sees how care works in someone else's home.
- Weeks 3 to 6: care under instruction. She gradually takes over basic care and medically prescribed treatment care herself, instructed and with feedback at the end of the round. A mid-point review records what is going well and what is still missing.
- Weeks 7 to 9: own visits with support. She looks after individual clients on the round largely on her own; the practice instructor is present but steps in less. The visit by the teacher from the nursing school often falls in these weeks.
- Week 10: wrap-up and assessment. Final conversation, qualified performance assessment and a note on how contact can continue after the placement - without pressure, but with a clear offer.
The last two points have a legal basis. Every facility involved in training prepares a qualified performance assessment of the placement carried out there and must make it known to the trainee and explain it at the end of the placement (Section 6 subsection 2 PflAPrV). The nursing school, for its part, is to schedule at least one visit by a teacher to the facility for each mandatory placement (Section 5 PflAPrV). Both belong in the schedule on the page because both concern the trainee directly: the conversation in which she learns how she was seen, and the date on which her school is on site. Announcing both in advance takes much of the exam atmosphere out of the placement.
Practical instruction: the figure schools look at
For the nursing school, practical instruction is the decisive question because it is part of the training obligation. The facilities of practical training ensure it, and it covers at least 10 per cent (Section 4 subsection 1 PflAPrV) of the practical training time to be completed during a placement, planned and structured on the basis of the agreed training plan. For 400 hours, that means at least 40 hours (Section 4 subsection 1 PflAPrV) of documented instruction. Who may instruct is regulated as well. On a mandatory placement, the practice instructor needs at least one year of professional experience as a registered nurse within the last five years (Section 4 subsection 2 PflAPrV), an additional qualification in vocational education of at least 300 hours and at least 24 hours of further training every year (Section 4 subsection 3 PflAPrV).
What belongs on the page is therefore not the sentence "You will be well instructed with us" but what a school can verify: how many practice instructors the service employs, how instruction time appears in the roster and how it is documented. Names and photos of the instructors appear only with their consent. In our experience, it is precisely these colleagues who are willing to be shown, because they receive the trainees on their first day anyway. How voices from the team come across as credible without sounding staged is described in Employee voices on the careers page.
Named practical instruction
Name, role and contact details of the practice instructors. The school knows whom to call, the trainee knows whom to look for on day one.
Instruction time in the roster
Instruction appears as a separate slot in the round, not as a side task. That is the basis for being able to evidence the minimum time later.
Record and assessment
How the training record is kept during the placement, who countersigns it and when the final conversation with the performance assessment takes place.
Rounds with learning value
Which rounds suit a placement: a mix of basic and treatment care, predictable times and one fixed companion instead of colleagues changing daily.
Ratio in the team
How many trainees are on duty at the same time. The law requires an appropriate ratio of trainees to registered nurses (Section 7 subsection 5 PflBG).
Feedback both ways
A short form at the end of the placement in which the trainee rates the service. What it says improves the next placement and the page.
Travel, hours, ride-alongs
Most questions from trainees are practical, and in home care they differ from those in hospitals and care homes. There is no ward to report to in the morning, but a meeting point from which the round starts. There are working hours that start early and continue at weekends. And there is the question of the car: does the trainee only ride along, does she need her own driving licence, who pays for parking at the base? A page that answers these questions before they are asked noticeably relieves the practice instructor in the first week. And it shows that the service has thought about the people who join for just a few weeks.
- Meeting point and travel. Address of the base, parking and the bus and train connection at the time the shift starts, not at midday.
- Working hours. Start and end of early and late shifts, the weekend arrangement and when the roster is fixed. How reliable rosters work on the careers page is described in Reliable rosters as an argument.
- Ride-alongs. Who drives, who rides along, whether a driving licence is needed and whether the trainee will later use a service vehicle herself.
- Clothing and equipment. Work clothing, protective equipment, a service phone or tablet for documentation and the arrangement for clients' door keys.
- The first day. Time, contact person, what to bring and how long the induction lasts before the round begins.
- Sickness and absence. Whom the trainee calls in the morning and how absences are coordinated with the school. Absences only count towards training as long as they do not exceed 25 per cent (Section 1 subsection 4 PflAPrV) of the hours of a mandatory placement.
The partnership enquiry for nursing schools
For nursing schools and providers, the page is an offer to work together. Cooperation usually starts with an enquiry and ends in an agreement; in between lie questions that a short form can pre-sort. What matters is that the enquiry does not end up in the general contact form but with the person who plans placements - usually the nursing service manager or the lead practice instructor. The rest is craft: few fields, a clear reply, a proposal for a meeting. These fields have proven themselves:
- Nursing school or provider with contact person and callback number, so that the reply does not pass through three forwards.
- Preferred placement periods, ideally as month and year, because schools plan their courses in blocks.
- Number of trainees per period, so that you can check before the meeting whether practical instruction and rounds are sufficient.
- Stage of training, because the mandatory placements are meant to take place before the interim exam (Section 7 subsection 3 PflBG), which falls at the end of the second third of training (Section 6 subsection 5 PflBG).
- The school's framework: teacher visit dates, templates for the record and the performance assessment, an existing model agreement.
The page itself states what the service offers: in which months places are free, how many trainees can come at the same time and which areas the rounds cover. Information that is updated every quarter is worth more than a general promise. It also helps to say who handles the enquiry and how the reply is given, without promising a deadline that cannot be kept in day-to-day work. The data from this form are contact details of schools, not health data. Even so, the same applies to this form as to any other on the website; what that requires is summarised on our page on data protection for care websites.
From placement to application after the exam
The home care placement takes place early in training. Annex 7 PflAPrV assigns it to the first and second thirds of training (Annex 7 PflAPrV), and under Section 7 subsection 3 PflBG it is meant to take place before the interim exam. Training takes three years full time (Section 6 subsection 1 PflBG); between the placement with you and the final exam there is therefore at least the last third of training, one year full time. During this time the trainee returns to her provider, usually completes her in-depth placement there as well (Section 7 subsection 4 PflBG) and will probably receive an offer from her own employer before she qualifies. A service that has not been in touch by then is out of sight.
The answer is not a circular but a shortlist with consent. At the end of the placement and on the page there is a short form: exam date, preferred start, interest in part-time or full-time work, contact channel. The trainee decides herself whether and when she wants to be reminded. In 2025, around 35,300 people (Destatis) completed their training as a registered nurse; a service that already knows some of them from a placement does not start its search from zero. For the application itself, a short route is then enough, as we explain in our answer to the question what a quick application is.
- Exam date and preferred start, so that the reminder arrives at the right time and not only after the first offer from her own employer.
- Area and hours: round, home town, part-time or full-time - the information actually needed for an offer, and nothing more.
- Contact channel and timing, chosen by the trainee herself, with one sentence on what the data will be used for.
- Deletion with a date: consent is voluntary and can be withdrawn, and the entries disappear once their purpose has been fulfilled. Which retention periods apply to applicant data is described in Deleting applicant data: retention periods for the careers page.
- The job itself: a concrete advertisement for new starters with an induction, linked from the shortlist. What matters in job advertisements for care is summarised on our service page.
Invite rather than poach
How to tell the page is working
Whether the page is pulling its weight shows in three figures you collect yourself: partnership enquiries per half-year, shortlist entries per placement cohort and applications whose sender previously did a placement with you. Page views say little because the audience is small and known. The feedback at the end of the placement says more: anyone who writes there that the meeting point and the first day were clear has read the page. For discoverability, the same applies as for any careers page; why local search also helps with recruiting is answered in our FAQ on whether local discoverability helps with recruiting.
The effort for the page remains manageable because its content already exists: in the training plan, in the cooperation agreements and in the heads of the practice instructors. The work lies in writing it down so that a head of school and a second-year trainee can both quickly find what they need. If you also want to reach school leavers before training, you will find the matching building block in the article Internships and voluntary service: winning school leavers for care. How a page picks up relatives who want to change provider is described in Switching home care provider: how your website picks them up. And how the placement page connects with the careers page and service pages is shown on our page on websites for home care services.
Sources and statutes
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