Workplace Supervision for Advanced Clinical Practice

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Download Workplace Supervision for Advanced Clinical Practice: An integrated multi-professional approach for practitioner development.

The publication sets out seven fundamental considerations which underpin supervision in advanced clinical practice:

  • Practice context
  • Competence and capability
  • Multiple professional registrations
  • Individual learning plan
  • Professional development and transition
  • Integrated approach
  • Supervisor development.

Multi-professional advanced practitioners are a growing part of the modern healthcare workforce. Their contribution to patient care and pathways is recognised in health and care policy (NHS, 2020). The supervision of healthcare practitioners through their training and beyond is an established part of healthcare practice, endorsed by professional bodies and regulators as the cornerstone of both professional and public safety. The CQC (2013) have described clinical supervision as:

‘an opportunity for healthcare practitioners to reflect on and review their clinical practice, discuss individual cases in depth and identify changes or modifications to practice which are required to maintain professional and public safety. It provides an opportunity to identify training and continuing development needs.’  

Currently, supervision has a profession-specific focus and varies greatly within and across professions. Existing workplace supervision practices may not map neatly to the learning needs of developing multi-professional trainee advanced practitioners. It can’t be assumed that uni-professional colleagues have an understanding of the professional scope or typical clinical practice profile of trainee advanced practitioners from different qualifying professions.

This publication draws on these fundamentals to describe what is required to:

  • establish the requirements of multi-professional advanced practitioner supervision
  • establish the training and development of supervisors
  • improve consistency and limit supervision practice variation across the health and care sector through a combination of a Coordinating Education Supervisor and Associate Supervisors matched to specialty knowledge and skills development.
  • ensure supervision with a focus on professional and public safety in advanced clinical practice. 

 Workplace Supervision for Advanced Clinical Practice – supporting videos

We have created nine videos to accompany this guidance, providing insights about best practice in multi-professional supervision for advanced practice. These insights have been gathered through conversations with colleagues working in advanced practice in a variety of clinical settings. We asked them to share what processes and structures they have found useful and why supervision is a crucial part of professional and public safety in advanced practice.

Each film maps to one of these fundamentals. We hope you will find them useful as you plan and develop your own supervision arrangements for advanced practice. 

View all nine supporting videos here

introduction

This publication has been developed collaboratively with a wide range of stakeholders from across the field of advanced clinical practice; from primary care to mental health and children’s services to emergency medicine. With advanced clinical practice continuing to develop in rapid and diverse ways, it is anticipated that this is a first iteration of such guidance.

The document provides practical and comprehensive guidance for workplace supervision of individuals undertaking the training journey to becoming an Advanced Practitioner. As such, it draws on a comprehensive array of resources and advice, setting out a clear set of pathways for both the trainee and supervisor. 

The document addresses the issues of multi-profession supervision within the changing and varied environments within which the trainee will be learning. Various definitions and roles are identified; Co-ordinating Education Supervisor and Associate Workplace Supervisors, with clear descriptions of these individual roles. The employers role is also identified with a solution-centric approach to some of the challenges that may occur in relation to providing and supporting workplace supervision. 

The guidance is well laid out which supports it’s use as an ‘often to be returned to’ source of information. There is a useful glossary, abbreviation and appendixes, references and further reading. 

Health Education England supports the guidance and encourages trainees and supervisors to add a copy to your training  portfolio and to refer to it frequently.

Dr Richard Collier, HEE Lead for Advanced Practice & Lead for Centre for Advancing Practice, Health Education England