Advanced Practice Week 2023: What Is It?

Last week was #AdvancedPractice2023 week; a week to celebrate and showcase the work that Advanced Clinical Practitioners (ACPs) are undertaking in our national health service. Advanced Practice week gives a formal platform for both trained and trainee ACPs from multi-professional backgrounds and multi-sectors to share learning, gain new insights around the role and its evolution within the NHS. Within this week, NHS England (NHSE) run their flagship event, the annual advancing practice conference, to promote and provide a networking opportunity. The conference takes place online for accessibility, and year on year includes a blend of inspiring and thought-provoking speakers from a range of leaders working with the advanced practice community. This year’s theme ‘A Future Worth Advancing’, focused on how the vision of the role has developed in the 75th anniversary year of the NHS, and how it will continue to evolve to provide a sustainable and diverse multi-disciplinary workforce to meet the needs of the people it serves. Developments shared within this conference will be utilised for the continued delivery and development of the ACP suite of programmes on offer at UON. Students and apprentices are encouraged to attend if they are able, and resources will also be shared on programme virtual learning platforms.

What is an ACP?

ACP is defined as a level of practice within clinical professions; ACPs can come from any background, including nursing, physiotherapy, paramedics, pharmacy, and other allied health professional backgrounds. They are educated to master’s level to develop within the four pillars of ACP: clinical practice, leadership and management, education, and research. And from this, have developed the skills and knowledge to allow them to expand roles and their scope of practice to better meet the needs of the people they care for.

How can I train to be an ACP?

Based upon the multi-professional framework for ACP, UON offers several accredited postgraduate (PG) master’s courses for healthcare professionals, which aim to equip them with the advanced skills and knowledge needed to develop as an ACP. The university has been running PG courses which have focused on the development of autonomous practitioners for over 14 years and have a multi-professional faculty who have dual roles in academia and the healthcare service to ensure that the ACP course meets the contemporary needs of the current workforce.

Programme achievements to date

On offer since 2019, the course has also developed to offer an employer-driven apprenticeship route. This route enables local employers to utilise government levy funding to send identified staff on their ACP programme, whilst supporting development to meet the ACP apprenticeship standard in the workplace with suitable supervision alongside the course.

The ACP courses have also been accredited by NHSE’s Centre of Advancing Practice, which provides national recognition and quality assurance that the full MSc course on offer at UON, meet the national standards. This means that if you successfully complete a full ACP course at UON, you are also able to be awarded with a digital badge from NHSE. This award provides a digital version of your qualifications and recognises educational equivalency, giving you national recognition of your ACP achievement.

What did advanced practice week look like for the programme team at UON?

It was a busy week for our ACP programmes, with year one students in for face-to-face teaching. Our advanced assessment module group were taught how to assess the abdominal system, and the diagnostic reasoning group how to utilise and interpret radiology images to support patient diagnosis. Some year two students were in for independent prescribing lectures learning about supplementary prescribing and how to write a clinical management plan, and some in for a session around leadership and problem solving to develop service improvement plans for their own area of healthcare. Year three students are now knee deep in advanced professional research project developments or preparing for their end point assessment if on the apprenticeship route following completion of this project so it’s never a dull moment.

On the horizon

As we progress further into this current academic year we are preparing for our next intake of ACPs (we run September and February intakes). We are developing our networks with our local stakeholders and working together to continually develop the quality of the programme our trainees can expect to receive whilst studying with us at UON. We are working with the NHSE regional lead for supervision and assessment to offer bespoke training around clinical supervision for trainees and their supervisors so watch this space- more information to come.

The modules that are offered as stand-alone options from the ACP course are

• Advanced Assessment and Clinical Reasoning CPD
• Diagnostic Reasoning for Practice CPD
• Non-Medical Prescribing Course
• Educating and Influencing others in Health Care
• Advanced Clinical Practitioner Apprenticeship

Laura Elliott

Laura is a senior lecturer for the advanced practice team and programme leads the Advanced Clinical Practice pathways on offer at UON.