Make your voice heard on standards of specialist practice

There is currently a ‘once-in-a-decade’ – possibly a ‘once-in-a-generation’ – opportunity for the advanced practice of general practice nurses to be systematically regulated by our professional regulatory body – the Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC).

While the NMC are not (yet) mandated to regulate advanced nurse practitioners, the draft standards for the recordable Specialist Practitioner Qualification (SPQ) reflect elements of advanced practice in primary care – for example, by the inclusion of standards of proficiency which include advanced clinical assessments and independent prescribing.

Importantly, following the intervention of the Chief Nursing Officers (CNOs) of the four countries of the UK in November 2020, the NMC re-introduced the SPQ annotations which include ‘General Practice Nursing’ as a field of practice. This provides an excellent opportunity for general practice nurses working at an advanced level of practice to be recognised alongside their colleagues leading and managing clinical care in District Nursing and Community Children's Nursing, for example.