Advanced Practitioner

Overview

Advanced Practice (AP) is a defined level of practice within clinical professions such as nursing, pharmacy, physiotherapy, paramedics, occupational therapy, dietetics and podiatry. This level of practice is designed to transform and modernise pathways of care, enabling the safe and effective sharing of skills across traditional professional boundaries.

Advanced Practitioners (APs) are healthcare professionals, educated to Master’s level or equivalent, with the skills and knowledge to allow them to expand their scope of practice to better meet the needs of the people they care for.  APs are deployed across all healthcare settings and work at a level of advanced clinical practice that pulls together the four AP pillars of clinical practice, leadership and management, education and research.

A definition of AP, its underpinning standards and governance, can be found in the Multi-professional framework for advanced clinical practice in England. The framework ensures there is national consistency in the level of practice across multi-professional roles that is clearly understood by the public, Advanced Practitioners, their colleagues, education providers and employers.

The roles undertaken by Advanced Practitioners are determined by the needs of the employer and how they require the level of practice to be deployed within their setting.  This may fit with nationally understood roles, such as those within emergency departments or very bespoke roles based upon the needs of a specific population such as an Advanced Practitioner Dietitian running a complex enteral feeding (tube feeding service for paediatric patients).

Advanced Practitioners in the Workforce

Please see the NHS England (NHSE) video on the right of this page for a brief overview of the role of Advanced Practitioners in the workforce.