Update: March 2025
A PDF version of this document can be downloaded here
Background and introduction
The NHS is facing considerable pressures associated with significant waiting times, an aging population with multiple co-morbidities, increasing healthcare costs, and substantial under resourcing (BMA, 2023). The 2019 NHS Long Term Plan and NHS People Plan 2020/21 signalled how advanced practice roles can significantly help in meeting the short and long-term workforce demands and have the ability to drive the workforce transformation agenda forward.
The NHS 2023 Long Term Workforce Plan (LTWP) articulates the continued drive to develop the advancing practice workforce as part of the multi-disciplinary team.Recognising the impact these roles can have not only on improving patient care but increasing the number of senior clinical decision makers within the NHS to improve productivity and increase capacity. The plan acknowledges the role advanced practitioners have in supporting and driving service transformation and developing new and innovative ways of working. It also recognises the importance of retaining our experienced senior staff and enabling career development where staff feel valued, entrusted and have the knowledge, skills and capability to provide high quality, safe, effective care for our patients and their families.
The Regional Faculty for Advancing Practice investment is aligned to the NHS England Workforce, Training and Education Delivery Plan, NHS People Plan, NHS Long Term Plan and NHS Long Term Workforce Plan to ensure that across the east of England our development is responsive to system needs and will deliver the right number of staff, with the right skills, values and behaviours, at the right time and in the right place. To grow our advanced practice workforce, we will continue to work in collaboration with our Integrated Care Board partners, organisations, and Higher Educational Institutes to identify workforce demand, enable the transformation of patient care and invest in workforce education and training development.
This strategy has been developed to outline, how as a region, we will work collaboratively to identify known barriers and how best to mitigate against these to enable us to meet the LTWP advanced practice workforce ambitions.
Advancing practice strategy for the East of England
We will promote and support the development of a multi-professional advanced practice workforce that meets the needs of the people that we serve across our region. We will continue to showcase the significant impact trainee, advanced and consultant level practitioners have on the delivery of high quality patient care as well as ensuring we develop a culture where our advanced practitioners’ experience, expertise and professionalism is recognised and valued.
The key priorities identified as part of the East of England strategy concentrate on developing and implementing system wide collaborative workforce planning and effective business case development, recognising that any additional funding to support the Long Term Workforce Plan will not be available until 2025/26.
1. We will support systems with workforce planning and transformation
This will include:
- challenging and supporting for the inclusion of advanced practitioner roles in the regional annual round of system workforce planning
- support organisations to identify key priority areas where advanced practitioners could impact service delivery and patient care and facilitate business case development. The faculty will continue to disseminate the ‘Advancing Practice in Emerging Areas Workforce Transformation Resource’ to support this
- support systems to ensure ESR / NWRS data accurately records practitioners working at an advanced level, to support effective workforce planning. This will involve the faculty sharing national data entry requirements and providing reports to organisations / ICBs from the NHS England quality tool
- supporting the multi-year system education planning managed at a regional level, working with systems and organisations to understand educational demand and actual utilisation to inform future submissions. The faculty will continue to undertake its current application processes to ensure robust eligibility criteria and governance remains in place to monitor appropriate return on investment
- supporting organisations to understand the level of advanced practice and the impact the roles have on service and workforce transformation. This will include continuing to update and develop relevant guidance documents, supporting stakeholder system and regional network and strategy meetings , continue to support practitioner recognition through funding advanced practice MSc training and supporting uptake of the ePortfolio (supported) Route
2. We will support organisations and ICBs to ensure that robust governance is developed and implemented
This will include:
- working with the Advanced Practice ICB Faculties to ensure all organisations have, or are developing, robust governance frameworks utilising the Centre for Advancing Practice ‘Governance maturity matrix’. Confirming clear lines of accountability and responsibility from trainee to Trust Board to ensure safe effective care for patients and their families.
- continuing to advocate for the need of named ICB and organisational Advanced Practice Leads, recognising the significant impact they have on governance and supporting NHS England and systems to achieve all other priorities outlined in this strategy document
- continue to support programme accreditation and undertake annual quality monitoring reviews and exception reporting in line with the Centre for Advancing practice governance processes. We will also work with services and HEIs to ensure area specific capabilities are embedded within programmes to ensure that we have the educational provision that meets the needs of the systems.
- continue to review and provide support and clarity to organisations on the impact of advanced practice regulation on workforce development. The faculty will continue to provide feedback and be part of the NMC stakeholder engagement events relating to advanced practice regulation
3. We will work with systems and organisations to ensure a fair representation of trainee advanced practitioners from an EDI background
The faculty will provide annual reports that outline trainee advanced practitioner EDI, profession and speciality data. We will continue to advocate for fair recruitment processes and continue to develop case studies and work with the national advanced practice inclusivity group to identify and reduce barriers for practitioners from an EDI background progressing into advanced practice roles.
4. We will continue to promote NETS
The faculty will continue to encourage increased uptake from trainee advanced practitioners. We will review the results and work with organisations where quality improvements are required, as well as showcasing and sharing best practice when identified
5. We will continue to support ICB / organisation to build multi-professional supervision capacity across the region
The faculty will continue to support consistent and high-quality protected supervision time via the advanced practice training grant and continue to disseminate the Centre for Advancing Practice supervision guidance documents. We will develop regional supervisor training documents to support supervisor development, thus increasing capacity of a multiprofessional workforce who understand and support the specific requirements of advanced practice.
Measurement of success through quantitative and qualitative analysis
The faculty will collate and report on the following:
| What is being measured | Measurement of success |
| Number of trainee advanced practitioners starting on accredited MSc Advanced Practice programmes, (quarterly reports) | The number of advanced practitioners starting on programmes increases each finance year |
| Annual analysis of the equality, diversity and inclusion (EDI) data of trainees to review if the diversity of the workforce is representative of the talent available and the community being served, (yearly report) | Protected characteristics of current advanced practice trainees approximately reflect the demographics of the general population at a system and regional level |
| Number of Advanced Practitioners in post across the region, (yearly report) | The number of advanced practitioners in post increases each finance year |
| Number of ICB and Organisational Advanced Practice leads in post, (quarterly reports) | Each ICB and organisation having an advanced practice lead in post |
| Number of organisations that have robust governance frameworks that include advanced level practice, (quarterly reports) | Each organisation has an advanced practice governance framework |
| Organisational and ICB workforce plans that include Advanced Practice roles, (yearly report) | All ICBs submit workforce plans that include the consideration of advanced practice roles |
| NETS, % uptake and survey feedback, (yearly report) | Survey uptake increases each finance year. Number of low-scoring outliers is 0 |
| Number of accredited MSc Advanced Practice programmes and area specific capability programmes available across the regional HEIs, (quarterly reports) | Each regional advanced practice programme has been accredited. Number of HEIs offering specific capability programmes increases each finance year, in line with provider demand and HEI speciality |
| Support ICB / Organisation to build multi-professional supervision capacity across the region, (quarterly reports) | Number of experienced advanced practitioners who are supervising trainees increasing each finance year |