Advanced practice regulation: NMC announces timeline
The Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) is aiming to launch a consultation on draft standards of proficiency for advanced practice and associated education programme standards by January 2025, it has been announced.
This week, the regulator has approved its plan for phase two of its work around regulating advanced practice, setting out key milestones and timelines for this part of its review.
The NMC review into advanced practice nursing, which has been taking place since 2022, has found great variation in how nurses enter and undertake advanced practice roles.
In March this year, the NMC’s governing council voted to press ahead with plans to regulate advanced practice, amid concerns that the variation could risk confidence and trust in advanced practitioners.
At a meeting of its governing council today (22 May), NMC chief executive and registrar, Andrea Sutcliffe, noted that the regulator had now approved the plan for phase two of the review.
She said Sam Foster, executive nurse director of professional practice at the NMC, and the wider professional pracrtice team, had been developing the workstreams and milestones for this stage, which are outlined in its latest council papers.
The first workstream and milestone is that the NMC will “develop and finalise a unified UK-wide advanced practice framework”.
It said it anticipated being able to present a draft framework and recommendations for implementation to the executive board and the council in the third quarter of 2024-25.
Meanwhile, the second workstream has promised to come up with draft standards of proficiency for advanced practice and draft associated education programme standards. Both will require a public consultation before they are finalised, said the council papers.
The NMC said that, with council’s agreement, it anticipated publicly consulting on the draft standards of proficiency and associated education standards from mid-January to mid-April 2025.
It said a report would then be presented to council following this activity in the third quarter of 2025-26.
The third workstream is around developing “a proportionate transitional approach” to recognise all the existing advanced practice professionals and those currently undertaking training.
The regulator said this would take approximately 18 months and it would keep the council updated on progress.
The final workstream is around ensuring that advanced practice is included in the review of revalidation and the NMC Code in 2025-26.
The regulator added that its independent advanced practice steering group, being chaired by former chief nurse Kay Fawcett, would ensure that it meets its goals, and will also continue to make recommendations to the NMC’s executive board.
Separately, the NMC said it had reached more than 1,100 people through a webinar on advanced practice.
The Florence Nightingale Foundation was also commissioned by the NMC to explore the implications of advanced practice regulation for internationally educated nurses and midwives. A survey on this has received 1,583 responses so far.
