What is the role of an Advanced Practitioner?

Advanced Practitioners

Advanced practitioners, sometimes known as Advanced Clinical Practitioners (ACPs), are experienced registered healthcare professionals that have undertaken further education and training to work at an advanced level of practice, while working autonomously, using complex decision-making skills, and managing a level of risk and uncertainty in their role. These roles take several years of training, are multi-professional, and offers a clinical career pathway that sits between enhanced practice and consultant level practice. This clinical career progression allows our experienced and talented practitioners to remain clinically focused while progressing their level of practice and developing new and innovative ways of working in their chosen area of healthcare.

Each advanced practitioner is expected to work across 38 capabilities as set out by NHS England’s Centre for Advancing Practice though the Multi-professional framework for advanced practice in England (2017) spanning across the four pillars of advanced level practice:

• Advanced clinical practice
• Leadership and management
• Education
• Research

As well as demonstrating the 38 capabilities, advanced practitioners are also expected to demonstrate core and area-specific capabilities that are designed and agreed by their clinical supervisor which supports the practitioners scope of practice. This platform offers a variety of templates for developing knowledge, skills and behaviours in the competences and capabilities they may require. More can be added as developed as some may cross over a number of roles.

Advanced practitioners can be found in primary care, community care, urgent and acute care, mental health and learning disability. As you may know, some advanced practitioner roles are historically known, such as Advanced Nurse Practitioners (ANP) in a general practice setting, however now there are more new and emerging areas of advanced level practice, such as Advanced Critical Care Practitioners, Emergency Department ACPs, Advanced Mental Health Practitioner or Advanced Paramedic Practitioner. In mid and south Essex, we are excited to be looking at developing new and emerging areas in advanced level practice, so that we can work towards meeting the changing needs of our population’s health, and support managers with the dynamic design and governance of these brand-new roles.