The NHS Long-Term Plan highlights how advanced practice is central to helping transform service delivery and better meet local health needs by providing enhanced capacity, capability, productivity and efficiency within multi-professional teams.

Building a recognised and visible advanced practitioner workforce is a priority for the NHS; there is a clear and identified need for highly experienced clinicians who are trained to an advanced level of practice.

Advanced practice is a defined level of practice within clinical professions such as nursing, pharmacy, and the Allied Health Professions (AHPs). 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 level practice isn’t a specific role, it includes all practitioners who have progressed to an advanced level through further education and training.

Advanced practitioners 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.

Advanced practitioners can be found across a range of professions and sectors.

The Allied Health Professions (AHPs) play a vital role in achieving the ambitions of the NHS Long Term Plan, including:

• the development and delivery of new service models - such as urgent care, community and intermediate care, and expanded community multidisciplinary teams);
• leading action to address health inequalities, improve population health and prevent ill health;
• contributing to progress on care quality and outcomes – including cancer, mental health, rehabilitation, and management of long-term conditions;
• delivering digitally-enabled and personalised care.

To achieve the ambitions set out in the NHS Long Term Plan AHPs will need to step forward, lead change, and work in partnership with health and social care colleagues across local systems.

Expanding the opportunities and better enabling AHPs to work at advanced practice level is vital.   

Tanya Rumney, a Training Programme Director for the North West Faculty for Advancing Practice has launched a new virtual network for advanced practitioner AHPs as well as trainee AHP advanced practitioners.

If you are an AHP working as a trainee or Advanced Practitioner anywhere in North West England then get in touch.

Tanya invites you to join this virtual network:

• by emailing acp.nw@hee.nhs.uk and ask to be added to the network
• by completing this short survey https://forms.office.com/r/sWmRyP6uas
• or by accessing the FutureNHS Platform https://future.nhs.uk/NorthWestAHPAdvanced/grouphome