Working on the roadmap to ACP

For many years, as an employer, I was concerned by the host of roles and levels of practice that surrounded job titles of ‘advanced’ or ‘specialist’. Given the potential risk to both individuals and employers, in a bid to achieve a systematic approach and have access to the apprenticeship levy as one of the routes available for funding, I chaired the Institute for Preceptorships and Technical Education's Advanced Clinical Practice Trailblazer group in 2017/2018. The employer-led group worked alongside Health Education England (HEE) and Skills for Health and was responsible for ‘developing occupational standards which form a key component of an apprenticeship’. This led to the approval of the Advanced Clinical Practitioner (ACP) Integrated Degree, setting out an occupational profile, responsibilities, and duties (https://tinyurl.com/45ty8sey).

HEE (2017) published the Multi-professional Framework for Advanced Clinical Practice in England with the aim of ensuring a much-required national consistency on ACP roles and providing some common understanding across health professions of the role, with an agreed education standard and governance arrangements. HEE stipulated that health professionals in ACP roles have to be educated to master's level and have developed the skills and knowledge to enable them to take on an expanded scope of practice in their delivery of patient care.