Updates from the Regional Faculty for Advancing Practice – North West
March 2024 update
The benefits for Bolton NHS Foundation Trust ensuring all the Advanced Practice workforce was identifiable within the Electronic Saff Records (ESR) – Dian Huyton (Lead ACP Bolton FT), Claire Partridge (Lead for Nursing, Midwifery and AHP Development, Bolton FT), Tracy Cassidy (Workforce Information Analyst, Bolton FT).
Historically, advanced practitioner roles at Bolton NHS FT have tended to evolve and be developed in an adhoc fashion rather than be part of any strategic workforce planning. This is reflected in the ESR workforce data pre-2023 where there was ambiguity over advanced practitioner job titles, levels of practice and differences between other specialisms. From January 2023, to ensure the advanced practitioner workforce was titled correctly and coded appropriately on ESR (and according to NHSE guidance ‘Advanced Practitioner roles – a guide to ESR coding’), the project team worked closely with clinical managers at Bolton FT and the NW Faculty for advancing practice to cleanse the ESR data. This has allowed them to correctly identify clinicians who are working at advanced practitioner level but also identify those who’s training and experience didn’t match the principles and capabilities as set out in the national framework.
Dian Huyton shares that “An unperceived benefit of the process has been that we now have a much greater awareness of where our advanced practitioner are across the Trust. This has supported workforce planning and reform. In addition it has also given us the opportunity to develop a more cohesive community of ACP’s across Bolton FT, strengthening the governance around the ACP role.”
Development & sign off Advanced Practice strategy & what it means to Cheshire and Merseyside – Sara Dalby
As lead for AP across C&M ICS Sara has led on an AP strategy;
The strategy was developed to align with the Advanced Practice Governance Matrix to support governance and assurance and is categorised under the 8 headings.
The strategy was co-produced with the North West Faculty of Advancing Practice and the AP leads from across Cheshire and Merseyside and utilising a logic model to identify outcomes and impact
To operationalise the strategy, Task and Finish groups have been created with specific outcomes:
– Job Planning
– Portfolios and Appraisals
– Supervision
– Community
– Recruitment
The agreed principles from this work will provide the standardisation that can be operationalised by employers. A link to the three year strategy can be found here:
An example of how the Faculty for Advancing Practice can provide support to Trainees through our Trainee Programme Directors (TPD) – Jaclyn Proctor
Jaclyn Proctor shares an example:
“As a TPD connecting with our regional trainees is central to our role. When I first started in my TPD role I was fortunate to meet a practitioner who took the time explained how undertaking the Maths and English during the advanced practice master programme felt. Sharing this and talking about the processes provide the opportunity to understand the wider picture for our trainees. More recently, the trainee reached out to communicate that they had successfully complete the master’s programme and passed the Advanced Practice Programme, which was fantastic news to receive.”
December 2023 update
Radiography Scoping Report
The North West Regional Faculty for Advancing Practice commissioned a Consultant Radiographer (Joleen Kirsty Eden) at East Lancashire Hospital NHS Trust to undertake a radiography workforce scoping & readiness evaluation of advanced and consultant level practice across the region to understand how the rediography workforce are working and supporting service need. The report can be found here and we will be working with key stakeholders to address the recommendations identified in this report – link.
Trainee Advanced Practitioner Steering Group:
We held our first virtual meeting on the 14th November. The steering group includes a variety of trainees and newly qualified advanced practitioners representing the multi-professional landscape of our practice. The focus of the first meeting explored elements to shape the terms of reference and how as a group we can communicate and work together to promote the NETS survey.
The plan will be that the group will be involved in collaborating with the Faculty when reviewing documents, focusing on what our new trainees require when commencing their programmes and co-creating new developments together. Our next meeting will be held online in February 2023.
Webinar – Leadership for improvement – Using a Quality Approach to your Work.
This webinar was held on the 30th November – the Faculty had 59 online attendees who joined to hear our key speakers Jane Murkin and Milena Krasinska-Chavez. Case studies were presented by Sarah Bolton, Nicola White, and Rachel Baird who shared their own work as ACPs and discussed quality improvement.
The webinar provided a great opportunity for reflection and to consider the approach for ACPs to QI in the workplace.
November 2023 update
Trainee Advancing Practice Steering Group
Earlier this month, Anna Riley and Jaclyn Proctor created a Trainee Advancing Practice Steering Group. The aim of the group is to represent advanced practice from across the North West region, with membership from a variety of higher education institutions, specialities and professional backgrounds.
Given trainees are at the heart of what we do as a Faculty, it seemed logical that our trainees inform and contribute to the faculty’s workstreams.
From the applications, we managed to get 37 representatives which covers;
1st, 2nd and 3rd year Trainees APs
Representation from 9/10 HEIs
Representation from all 3 ICS areas
A range of specialities including; Acute medicine / urgent care / emergency medicine, Surgery (including breast, general & spinal), Specialty medicine (inc. geriatrics, chronic pain, gastro & congenital heart), Community, Oncology (inc. Acute & therapy), critical care, learning disability, mental health and primary care.
A range of professions including; Nurse (inc. MH), ODP, Physiotherapist, Speech & language therapist, Pharmacist and Paramedic
The first meeting is set to take place on 14th November 2023.
Summary of Supervision and Assessment lead day in London
On 19th October, the Supervision and Assessment Leads (S&A leads) met up together for a face-to-face day in London, led by Deborah Harding, the Supervision subject matter expert.
It was an opportunity to review the work with the S&A leads to date and look to the future and what that holds for Advanced Practice supervision.
The new supervision capability framework was discussed – especially regarding implementation regionally and the supervision session at the National AP Conference on 8th/9th November.
A link to the framework is here.
Further details about the framework and supervisor resources will be coming soon.
October 2023 update
Prison Healthcare Transformation Webinar
On Tuesday 3rd October, NHSE North West hosted a national Prison Healthcare Transformation webinar that discussed the wide range of options for developing the workforce and service provision in secure services across the country.
Kay Roscoe and Nick Worth represented Advanced Practice by presenting the benefits of having an Advanced Clinical Practitioner within a Prison Healthcare Service.
Kay described the breadth of attributes that an ACP can bring and introduced Karen Daniels and Catherine Lay Brooks, who are both experienced ACPs in Prison Services, to share their career journey and the opportunities for development of the role.
Nick then explained the education pathways and options for those wishing to ‘grow their own’ Trainee ACPs and funding on offer.
There were some great questions from the attendees and we are hoping to see an increase in the number of Trainee ACPs applying for their ACP Masters programme in the coming year.
Thanks to Kay, Karen and Catherine for such inspirational talks!
Lancashire and South Cumbria Primary Care Training Hub Webinar
On 7th September Liz Reilly and Annabella Gloster were invited to join a webinar that the L&SC Primary care training hub were hosting for their ICS.
Both Liz and Annabella gave an overview of the vision, purpose, and the priority areas of work within the Faculty and our highlights from the last year.
The webinar then focussed on providing information on the application process for NHSE funding via either the Apprenticeship or fees funded routes onto the Masters in AP programmes and gaining recognition of capability as an AP through the supported e-Portfolio route.
Key messages around the criteria for reimbursement for Advanced practitioners through the ARRS scheme and key enablers to supporting and developing trainee ACPs were shared and individuals who have recently gone through both the Masters and supported e-Portfolio routes gave an insight into the ‘lived experience’.
Feedback from participants following the webinar has been overwhelmingly positive.
July 2023 update
Poster Presentations – TPD projects
In the first year of their secondment, the Training Programme Directors (TPDs) created individual projects that aimed to have a direct impact on AP Trainees across the North West.
These were completed in February 2023 and presented to the Faculty as well as Andrea Boland , Head of Nursing, Helen Duff, Senior Quality Lead and Chris Cutts, the Regional Director.
To see what the projects entailed you can visit their summarised poster presentations – the link is here.
Community Advisors Project
The Community Advanced Practice Project was run from October 2022 to March 2023 to identify service development opportunities within Community services for Advanced practitioners.
The Faculty had received national funding to support this project to promote the use of AP’s across the North West.
The region was split into 24 sections and we shared these out between 8 Community APs who engaged with existing and potential employers and practitioners via a range of activities such as webinars and events.
Over 450 activities were conducted over the project and the summary can be found here.
Already, we have seen double the applications for funding for trainee APs in Community settings for 23/24 since the project began.
Our thanks go to all of the Community Advisors who helped make the project such a success and all those who engaged with them..
June 2023 update
Optimising Advanced Practice across the North West
The NW region held their first Advancing Practice conference on 19th May 2023 which was delivered in partnership with the North West Faculty for Advancing Practice, the Advanced Practice Leads from the three North West Integrated Care Systems and experts in clinical practice and academia. The event was ‘sold out’ in less than 48 hours with 268 attending.
The conference focus was for advanced practitioners across the region to explore how we can optimise advanced practice in the North West. The faculty shared a vision where advanced practitioners are integral to the design and delivery of every care pathway and system in the future, demonstrating the positive contribution to transforming services and improving patient care.
Conference sessions included: Changes in population health across the North west; System leadership, Demonstrating the value of advancing practice from a health economic perspective and several workshops focussing on all pillars of practice. The full conference programme with biographies of speakers can be found on our webpage – link .
A reverse panel concluded the conference day asking the delegates a series of questions, to challenge how they can contribute to demonstrating impact and realising a vision for the NW. Delegates were asked to share two pledges following the day and here are a few examples which we will be following up later this year:
– To continue to strive as a role model & leader in our NHS
– Contributing to highlighting advanced practice within my organisation
– Promote the good work I am doing as an ACP
Eva from the NW NHSE (WT&E) comms team supported the event and shared via twitter photos and quotes from many of the speakers on the day. A lot of activity was posted on social media with some examples below #APNWConference23
The International Journal for Advancing Practice also supported the event with providing poster prize for the winner out of 13 posters that were successful in being presented on the day. Since the conference the editor has invited several of the authors to him for support to publish these as future pieces of work in the journal.
Overall the event was hugely successful in energising, networking and pledging to enact the full potential advanced practitioners can make across systems and for the North West. We will look to evaluate progress later this year with a plan on continuing the relationships established to support Advanced practitioners across the region.
May 2023 update
North West Advancing Practice Conference – Poster abstract submissions
A number of submissions for our NW conference was received and reviewed by a panel of ICS AP Leads and members of the Faculty.
The authors of the successful abstracts will have the opportunity to present their poster at the conference in Manchester on the 19th May. There are a breadth of topic areas. Examples include education; digital platforms; screening for delirium; improving the perioperative pathways for patients with diabetes. Specialties include mental health; research; community; private and voluntary sector and acute care and includes a diverse multi-professional range. The poster abstracts will be shared on our webpage after the conference on the 19th May.
North West Provider Advanced Practice Events
The Faculty have been excited to be invited to a number of advanced practice events this year whereby organisational leads have brought together their AP workforce including trainees. Events have focused on providing an overview of the Faculty and what the vision is for the NW and how we can work collaboratively together in addition to exploring organisational strategies to ensure governance, exploring professional development and a network for their advanced practitioners.
If you are considering hosting an event please contact us if you would like someone from the Faculty to attend.
NW Regional Faculty for Advancing Practice – highlights 2022/23
Below is a summary of some key pieces of work the faculty have been involved in and/or delivered across the year:
April 2023 update
Summary Report of Offers
On Tuesday 4 April 2023, the Faculty emailed all designated leads with the outcome of their organisation’s funding request submissions.
Organisations are now required to;
– Accept or decline the offer by Wednesday 19th April 2023,
– Commence the recruitment process,
– Engage with the Programme Lead at the offered University,
– Liaise with appropriate teams regarding the apprenticeship requirements
If you have any questions regarding the process, please do contact our email address acp.nw@hee.nhs.uk
As it stands, we have received 420 applications 410 of which were approved for funding.
Late Submission Launch
Following the funding request process, the NW Faculty for Advancing Practice is due to launch the late submission on Monday 17th April 2023. This will prioritise specific speciality areas.
An email will be sent with a link to the funding request application form to our sign up database – the link for the database is here.
End of Year Summary – Achievements
A summary of progress and achievements by the Faculty for Advancing Practice in 22-23 can be seen here:
Primary Care Day
On 30th March Nick, Debra and Catherine attended the Primary Care event at the Totally Wicked Stadium in St. Helens.
The event was run by the Training Hubs from the ICS areas of Greater Manchester, Cheshire and Mersey and Lancashire and South Cumbria.
Over 100 attendees came for a range of talks regarding Allied Health professions and Advanced Practice opportunities in the region.
The Faculty hosted a stall and two breakout sessions on supervision in the workplace.
Community AP event day
On Friday 31st March, the Faculty held an end of project celebration day for the Community AP project that has been running for the past six months.
The Community ACP advisors have had engagement with over 700 people throughout the project and we have seen over double the applications for AP trainees this year in Community settings.
The Community ACP advisors have worked hard to shine a light on the great opportunities that exist for AP’s within the specialty and where services can be developed further.
Our thanks go to all of the ACPs for their support and we will share the overall final project findings on the website soon!
Case Study – Deepak Agnihotri
On 2 April it was World Autism Day, to celebrate this the Faculty would like to showcase Deepak Agnihotri a Faculty Training Programme Director/ ACP and how he works across the 4 pillars of advanced practice. Deepak is an Advanced Clinical Practitioner in Learning Disabilities and Autism.
Deepak has facilitated a network for Learning Disability & Autism (LD&A) who have been meeting over several weeks to establish a quality matrix and identify where support is required. The project aimed to ensure that ACP LD&A trainees feel well supported, and the project made great strides to accomplish this.
February 2023 update
Autumn 2023 – Spring 2024 North West Advancing Practice Funding application closing date 15 February 2023
Late November 2022 we launched the funding application process for the Autumn 2023 and Spring 2024 Advancing Practice Masters Programme.
Funding will be allocated to employers to address their population/service need and is not available for individual/s’ continual professional development.
For full guidance on how to implement and fund advancing practice please access our guide on our webpage
What should you do if you are interested in applying for funding
If your service is part of an NHS Trust please contact you AP Lead who can support the development of an Advanced Practice role and the expression of interest process.
All other employers delivering NHS commissioned services please follow this link to complete an expression of interest form
The deadline for submissions to the Faculty is very close so if you have not submitted please do Wednesday 15 February 2023
World Cancer Day
On 4 February it is World Cancer Day – a day that unites people, communities and entire countries to raise awareness and take action. In support of this awareness, the Faculty would like to show case the career pathway of Lucy Buckley – Consultant Colorectal Radiographer.
Save the date – North West Advancing Practice Conference 19th May 2023
January 2023 update
Commissioned a project to scope the advanced practice and consultant practice radiographer workforce
The Faculty have commissioned a project to identify the advanced and consultant practice radiography workforce across the North West that meets the capabilities in the Multi-professional Framework for Advanced Practice in England and the recently published Education and Career Framework by the Society of Radiographers – link
Gaining an understanding of the existing skills and function at this level with any challenges or barriers practitioners face will help with workforce conversations and allowed targeted interventions where they are most appropriate to support service transformation.
This will assist and support skill mix conversations within ICS’ and Providers, with an aim of providing some best practice and case studies to share to support workforce and job planning conversations as well as longer term planning, strategic decision making and retention of the workforce.
Funding to support a workforce audit of Advanced Practitioner for ESR and to support upskilling
The Faculty have offered an Advanced Practitioner training and education investment to all NHS Trusts to support the ESR coding changes and upskilling of the advanced practice workforce. Trusts that have accepted this allocation will be completing an advanced practice workforce audit in order to update the relevant workforce’s ESR coding. This will enable the Trust to have accurate records of the workforce that will enable to support advanced practitioners to further upskill by accessing training. This can include training for experienced advanced practitioners to become supervisors to new advanced practice trainees.
Faculty for the first time able introduce us to the identified trainee advanced practitioner’s clinical supervisors
From the September 2022 cohort of ACP Trainees, the Faculty have requested a named supervisor as part of the application process.
This will enable us to have direct access to the supervisors of the trainees and be able to share resources and updates as well as offer support.
The Faculty are also creating a supervisor within ACP course to develop the knowledge and experience of those practitioners who are new to supervision. Our aim over the medium to long term is to encourage existing ACP’s to become supervisors and reduce the reliance on medics, who have previously carried the weight of the supervision workload.
As new evidence and resources become available through the work of the Centre for Advancing Practice and the regional Faculties, this can be sent directly to the ACP supervisors in the North West to improve the support that trainees receive throughout their training.
The Faculty can also be the point of contact for supervisors if they require any support or wish to discuss any problems that they may be experiencing. The Training Programme Directors, within the Faculty, are available to assist in this support across the region.
December 2022 update
Advanced Clinical Practice LUHFT Conference
Debra presented at Liverpool University Hospitals Foundation Trust’s first away day for their Advanced Clinical Practitioners. This was the first time that all trainee and qualified advanced practitioners were in the same room. Julie Brake, AP Lead for the Trust organised the event with a focus around the research pillar. Experts attended and shared some fantastic presentations to support Advanced Practitioners to become more involved in quality improvements and research. Three Advanced Practitioners in the Trust shared their experiences within the closing part of the day covering an overview of supervision. Congratulations to Julie Brake for a successful, thought provoking and engaging day.
Faculty looking for Advanced Practitioners to develop their case study
Liam Hagerty has been working on a project to raise the profile of Advanced Practitioners through case studies, which are showcased on the Faculty’s website. So far 8 case studies have been developed and they have had positive feedback and substantial engagement on social media.
The Faculty want to hear from a breadth of Advanced Practitioners to showcase the diversity of role across areas and professions at an advanced level of practice. We want to showcase a truly multi-professional advanced practice workforce across a variety of specialities and services in the North West. If you would like to be featured in a case study, please complete the survey. The faculty will review all submissions and where appropriate develop your own case study.
To take part in this exciting opportunity please click here to complete the form. If you have any questions, you can contact Liam at Liam.Hagerty@hee.nhs.uk .
New team member
Sasha Johnson has joined the Education and Commissioning team in HEE for the Advancing Practice financial process. Sasha is currently ensuring that all trainees are validated and where there are any missing gaps to gain confirmation to enable an education training contract to be drawn up and payment schedules to be shared specifically with primary care practices and private, independent and voluntary organisations.
Supporting HEE funded Advanced Practice trainees
Autumn 2022 trainees are the first trainees to complete the newly developed trainee data collection form. Having information about our new trainees will help the faculty to directly offer the support from our Training Programme Directors, ensure they have a supervisor in alignment to our funding requirements and so we can share all our useful information that is on our website. All trainees will receive our monthly update emails too. In previous years we have not had the contact details of the HEE funded trainees and in the new year we will start to look at all existing trainees to complete our form.
November 2022 update
Advancing Practice Week 13 – 19 November 2022
The Faculty for Advancing Practice will be taking part in Advancing Practice week with daily tweets via the @NHSHEE_NWest account. Please follow this account to receive daily updates of how we are celebrating Advanced Practice week.
The Faculty would love you to celebrate Advancing Practice week, by sharing the great work you do either as an Advanced Practitioner, a trainee Advanced Practitioner or supporting the development of an Advanced Practice
Don’t forget to use the hashtags – #AdvPracWeek2022 #ACPNW
Case Study
To celebrate #WorldRadiographyDay on the 8th November, the Faculty for Advancing Practice are showcasing Tess Roberts, Advanced Clinical Practitioner with a background in Radiography, and how she works across the 4 pillars of Advanced Practice.
September 2022 update
Primary Care Event
On 21st September the GM Training Hub held a conference for Primary Care teams. Liam and Nick represented the Faculty at the event to hear about Advanced Practice developments and meet the attendees.
The event was well attended and was a great opportunity to get out and meet some Advanced Practitioners doing great work in the region.
Lancashire and South Cumbria Foundation Trust Event
Lancashire and South Cumbria NHSFT held an ACP Forum education event on 27th September at the Lancashire FA ground.
The Faculty were invited by Teresa Lean to give an overview of Advanced Practice and the work of the Faculty. Nick spoke about the support that ACP Trainee and qualified practitioners receive from HEE and the Faculty – including supervision. Anna Riley, one of our TPD’s discussed job planning and a consolidation year within ACP.
Loads of fantastic discussions and opportunities to network within the region.
Community Advisor
Over the past few weeks, the Faculty have met with 8 Community Advisors to work across the North West to fact find and develop the provision of ACP’s within the Community setting.
This is a project that is planned to last around 6 months and will help promote the benefits of Community Advanced Practice and identify future Community ACP Trainees.
The team will get together virtually in mid-October to kick off the project.
We are really looking forward to working together with all of the Community Advisors and I am sure that they will be visible across the whole region soon!
Case Study
To celebrate #AHPsDay on the 14th October, the faculty are showcasing our own Tanya Rumney , Advanced Clinical Practitioner in Dietetics, and how she works across the 4 pillars of Advanced Practice.
August 2022 update
North West Faculty for Advancing Practice Virtual Information Event- Tuesday 11th October 2022
This is a reminder that the North West Faculty for Advancing Practice are hosting a full day virtual information event on Tuesday 11th October 2022. The event is aimed at prospective and current ACP trainees, existing Advanced Practitioners, and employing organisations (including primary care practices, service leads and Advanced Practice Leads.) Please press our events section link for more information.
If you haven’t already, please remember to register to attend this event via this form by 10th October 2022.
Advancing Practice in Physiotherapy and Primary Care
To celebrate #WorldPhysiotherapyDay, the North West Faculty for Advancing Practice would like to showcase how Liz Reilly, a Physiotherapist, and Advanced Practitioner in Primary Care, works across the 4 pillars of Advanced Practice.
July 2022 update
North West Faculty for Advancing Practice Virtual Information Event- Tuesday 11th October 2022
The North West Faculty for Advancing Practice are pleased to announce that it will be hosting a virtual information full day event on Tuesday 11th October 2022. The event will be aimed at prospective and current ACP trainees, existing Advanced Practitioners, and employing organisations (including primary care practices, service leads & Advanced Practice Leads. The full programme can be found on our events section.
To register to attend this event please fill in this form. By Friday 30th September 2022.
Opportunity to be a Presenter and showcase your work – as part of this event we would like to encourage Trainee and Qualified Advanced Clinical Practitioners to showcase the excellent work being delivered within Advancing Practice. If you are interested in presenting, then please fill in this short survey to provide a short summary (max 500 words) of an advanced practice service transformation. This summary must be submitted by 12pm (noon) Friday 9 September 2022
The summary should highlight how the service has changed or been developed, outcomes and/ or cost savings achieved, and benefits to patients/population.
Education Providers drop-in sessions – The event will also provide a separate all-day virtual drop in session run by our partner universities highlighting the advanced practice provision offered and any speciality specific pathways. It will allow employers and prospective trainees an opportunity to ask questions and meet the teams and will operate on a flexible basis in conjunction with our main event .
Launch of expression of interest waiting list form for funding to commence Spring 2023
HEE NW Faculty for Advancing Practice are inviting organisations across the north west who would like to submit an Expressions of Interest for Advanced Practitioner funding for 22/23 for programmes commencing January 2023 – March 2023 to be put on our waiting list.
To request funding please complete this form by 12 noon Monday 3 October 2022.
Launch of Governance Matrix
On 13th July, the Centre held a webinar to share the ACP Governance matrix which has been developed by a team led by James Pratt.
This is a self-review document to assess where organisations have sufficient support and structures in place and where improvements are identified.
This is an important development across all areas of Advancing Practice and will be utilised by the Faculty to work with employers to create a safe and supportive environment for patients and ACP practitioners.
The link to the matrix (as well as a recording of the webinar) is available here.
If you have any questions regarding the implementation of the matrix into your organisation, please contact the Faculty via acp.nw@hee.nhs.uk
June 2022 update
Celebrating International Paramedic Day 8th July
In support of Paramedic day, the Faculty would like to share how Scott Murray, Advanced Paramedic Practitioner works across the four pillars of advanced practice at Bay Medical Group. Showcasing how Advanced Practitioners (AP) are integral to contemporary healthcare provision to improve patient access, benefit from senior clinical expertise, and offer holistic patient care for patients’ outcomes.
Our first webinar looking at the Research Pillar
The Faculty and the North West Clinical Research Networks (GM & NWC) Workforce, Learning & Development Team recently hosted a webinar which focused on how Advanced Practitioners can incorporate research within their practise. The webinar covered areas such
– As why research is important and how its organised,
– How to become research ready and
– Incorporating research delivery within Advanced Practitioner roles.
The event was aimed at Trainee and existing advanced practitioners within any clinical setting and was led by Liz Jemmett, Advanced Practice Training Programme Director (Paediatrics & neonates), Seonaid Beddows – Workforce Learning & Development Manager, National Institute for Health Research and Mary Speake – Workforce Learning & Development Lead, National Institute for Health Research.
A recording of the session will be available shortly. If you did not register for this event and would like to receive a copy, please contact sarah.hadfield@hee.nhs.uk
September will see a webinar for Radiographers and Advancing Practice
The NW Faculty are collaborating with national and regional radiography colleagues to deliver a webinar for service managers / aspiring ACPs to:
– Highlight the impact of advanced practice roles
– Showcase case study examples
– Discuss training routes
– Benefits for service, staff retention and career pathways.
A save the date will be sent as soon as dates and plans are finalised for late September.
Cheshire and Merseyside AP Leads met for the First ICS network mtg
The Faculty organised the first collaborative Advancing Practice ICS meeting across Cheshire and Merseyside. All Advanced Practice Leads from the NHS Trust and the Primary Care Training hub were invited to listed to the role of the Faculty and our objectives for the year. Debra Allcock also shared the changes to ESR for advancing practice and how the leads could support this within their trusts. The newly appointed Advanced Practice Lead across Cheshire and Merseyside Sara Dalby will be looking to set this meeting on a regular basis.
Quality Improvement project and leadership course
On 29th June, a celebration event was held in Ellesmere Port showcasing the Professional & Clinical Leadership & QI Development Programme across Cheshire and Mersey.
The project team was led by Joanne Inman from the Cheshire and Wirral Partnership NHS Foundation Trust.
The scheme was a pilot to enable Leadership skills to be combined with QI projects so that the attendees were able to undertake workplace service improvement. 30 students completed the programme and the celebration day included healthcare leaders sharing their career journey.
Nick had been part of the team that designed the programme and it was felt that this may be a fantastic opportunity for ACP’s to develop Leadership experience and make a positive impact in their workplace.
It is hoped that this programme may be repeated again soon as it has proved to be very popular and successful.
May 2022 update
Advancing Practice in Learning Disabilities and Autism
In support of Learning Disabilities Week (20th-26th June), the Faculty would like to share how Deepak Agnihotri works across the four pillars of advanced practice to deliver personalised care and support the quality of life of his patients. Deepak is an Advanced Clinical Practitioner in Learning Disabilities and Autism at Cheshire and Wirral Partnership NHS Foundation Trust.
HEI (Higher Education Institutes) ACP Programme Network
The Faculty meet quarterly with the North West HEIs. This network is to look at collaborative working across the North West.
The last meeting took place on 19 May 2022. The meeting covered:
· The expression of interest process and looked at any lessons learnt
· The development of credentials. A HEE subject matter expert attended the meeting to discuss the progress of this area. If you would like further information about the credentials you can access on this website’s credential webpage ,
· The Faculty is working with the HEI’s in developing a Best Practice Guidelines for recruitment of and supervision for trainees.
NW Faculty for Advancing Practice – Expression of Interest process
The Faculty would like to thank all the organisations that accepted or declined the offer of HEE funding. This enabled us to inform the Universities of their expected numbers and enabled us to provide the unique reference numbers to support them and the organisation through the HEI’s recruitment process.
The Faculty is now working with our Widening Participation team to ensure those organisations that need support for levy transfers or government co-investment funding for their apprenticeship pathway will receive the appropriate support.
In addition, the faculty has reached out to identified workforce priority areas including Primary Care and Learning Disability & Autism.
The Faculty is developing a waiting list expression of interest form and process. This will only be for Spring 2023 intakes. Further details will be shared.
The Faculty yearly workplan
During May our priority has been focussing on how we will be delivering against our yearly workplan. This includes:
– Workforce Planning, Modelling and Intelligence
– Monitoring HEE funded trainees
– Workforce Growth and Education Commissioning
– Quality
– Innovation and Modernisation
– Communications and Engagement
– Recruitment, Assessment and Supervision
The Faculty is in the process of updating their webpage on the Advancing Practice website that will provide further information.
Meet Sara Dalby – ACP Lead in Cheshire & Merseyside
Please allow me to introduce myself, my name is Sara, my background is advanced practice in Surgery. I have commenced in post as the Advanced Practice Lead across Cheshire and Merseyside. I am very excited to be working with you all to take forward advanced practice across the region along with other members of the NW Regional Faculty for Advancing Practice.
I would welcome the opportunity to meet with you, understand more about advanced practice in your organisation and discuss how we can work together. Please let me know your availability and I shall book a time in my diary to meet.
If you have any questions or require any additional information please don’t hesitate to contact me at any point. My email is saradalby@liverpoolft.nhs.uk.
April 2022 update
NW Regional Faculty for Advancing Practice – highlights 2021/22
Regional Faculty for Advancing Practice highlights 21-22
NW Faculty for Advancing Practice – Expression of Interest process
Wednesday 4 May 2022, the Faculty emailed all designated leads/name contact with the outcome of their organisation’s expression of interest submissions.
Organisations are now required to;
– Accept or decline the offer by mid-May 2022,
– Commence the recruitment process,
– Engage with the Programme Lead at the offered University,
– Liaise with appropriate teams regarding the apprenticeship requirements
If you have any questions regarding the process, please do contact our email address acp.nw@hee.nhs.uk
Supporting HEE funded trainees
Watch this Space – from Autumn 2022 onwards, the faculty will be requesting organisations to provide information about each trainee and their supervisor details. This will enable the faculty to support trainees and gain vital information to understand the Trainee Advanced Practitioner workforce and Clinical Supervisors for Trainee ACPs.
Case Study – Kay Roscoe
Kay Roscoe is an Advanced Clinical Practitioner in Adult Mental Health Services at Mersey Care NHS Foundation Trust. Kay believes that advanced clinical practice helps patients by improving access to robust assessment and treatment plans. It also benefits NHS staff by providing additional clinical leadership and support. Please read Kay’s experience as an Advanced Practitioner
Training Programme Directors projects
All nine Training Programme Directors have been developing projects to improve the experience of Advancing Practice Education. Below provides a snapshot of what each project is about.
Anna Riley – Emergency and surgical care Development of a practice support manual to help trainee ACP’s
Deepak Agnihotri – Learning Disabilities & Autism Establish a community of practice and quality matrix for LD&A trainee ACP’s
Jaclyn Proctor – Acute care Gathering evidence from trainee ACP to identify and prioritise quality improvements
Kay Roscoe – Mental Health – Improving the quality of trainee ACP supervision in mental health across the North West footprint through Action Learning Sets.
Martin Troedel – Urgent care/MSK Mentorship programme for trainee ACP’s in emergency and urgent care
Liz Reilly – Primary care – understanding the effectiveness of the tools and resources available for clinical supervisors within the Primary Care setting to confidently undertake their role as Clinical supervisors
Liz Jemmett – Paediatrics, Women’s Health and Midwifery – Developing a community of advanced practice to support change through research.
Scott Murray – Primary care – Exploring ACP confidence and development needs for managing key clinical presentations in primary care through the design and implementation of a learning needs analysis tool.
Tanya Rumney – AHPs Virtual network – to reduce isolation for minority AHP groups into ACP
Feedback about our Faculty from key individuals
The faculty recently invited some key stakeholders to provide feedback around their experience and engagement with the faculty over the last 12 months in the form of an anonymous survey. The survey was designed to help us understand a wide range of views around areas such as how we are valued, how are goals and objectives are being understood and any challenges which may have been identified. We were delighted to have some fantastic responses which were extremely positive. Some of the feedback received has been included below:-
“I think the faculty play an important role in the distribution of information from national to regional areas. It also helps with networking and sharing of best practice.”
“This is a process of development, and the team are working hard to meet the needs of all stakeholders. It’s a relatively new team and I think this will get better as the team evolves”
“It’s really helpful to have specialists to draw on in the area of Advancing Practice & all the component elements. The EOI process, and the panels for AP has been smooth & well co-ordinated.”
“much needed leadership for the region and advanced practice growth”
“Excellent communication and engagement. Responsive supportive and helpful”
These responses will now help to build continual improvement within our work and ensure we remain committed to delivering our objectives in the best way we can to suit our stakeholders needs.
March 2022 update
North West Expression of Interest for Advanced Practice Programme
The faculty have been through all the expressions of interest submissions. 11% of the submissions had queries, contact has been made to the identified ACP Lead within the organisation for theses to be resolved. The next phase if for the faculty to discuss the submissions with our internal teams for example the pharmacy team, primary care and the three ICS’s workforce education and transformation teams.
These meetings will enable us to highlight the submissions and how they align with the strategic direction for Advancing Practice. Showcasing innovative and transformational roles.
During April the faculty will start to put the processes in place to confirm if the faculty are able to offer a HEE funded place. Decisions will be communicated out as soon as possible, as we appreciate the timeframes required for the recruitment process of trainees.
If you have any questions in the meantime please email us acp.nw@hee.nhs.uk
E-Portfolio (Supported) Route
Recognition of registered health and care practitioners who demonstrate complete fulfilment of the capabilities for Advanced Clinical Practitioners set out in the Multi-professional framework for advanced clinical practice in England (HEE 2017) is offered through a number of different routes, via the Centre for Advancing Practice (Centre).
One of these routes is the ePortfolio (supported) route whereby an individual practitioner already working at an advanced level of practice, but who has not undertaken a HEE accredited ACP programme, is supported by an education provider to produce a portfolio that maps fully to the ACP Framework capabilities. Any identified gaps and learning to achieve successful completion of the portfolio must be within a 12 month period.
In the North West 127 advanced practitioners submitted applications to be considered for this route and have now progressed to being allocated to an education provider to undertake an initial learning needs analysis against the Multi-professional framework. The NW Faculty for Advancing Practice will work closely with the education providers to support those who may need further learning or experience which could not be completed within a reasonable period (12 months) to support their ongoing educational progress.
North West Faculty for Advancing Practice: Supervision gap analysis report
Throughout 2021, Nick Worth and Sarah Hadfield undertook a gap analysis for supervision across the North West. The intention was to establish current situation regarding supervision provision and the support that is required for supervisors and trainees in all healthcare specialties.
The gap analysis included interviewing ACP Programme Leads from each North West HEI, a selection of employers, supervisors and trainees. The results were then reviewed and collated as a report in order to inform the future focus of the Faculty regarding supervision for ACP trainees.
The recommendations are:
– Minimum of one hour per week with named co-ordinating supervisor to be implemented from 22/23 as detailed in the Minimum standard for Supervision Document.
– To use associate supervisors where required to ensure trainee ACPs have the required level of support across all four pillars of advanced practice.
– To develop a best practice guide for employers / organisations of trainee ACPs that gives examples of different models of good quality supervision across the North West region.
– To create a bank of resources for supervisor training regionally in the North West and work with other Supervision and Assessment Leads across HEE to create National supervisor certification.
– To deliver webinars for existing ACPs to discuss supervision and to encourage update of training and use of available resources to equip them with the skills and knowledge to become supervisors for other trainee ACP’s.
– Promote the Faculty commissioning process which includes readiness checklists for employers to be able to support the ACP throughout their training.
– Support the TPD’s to obtain ACP trainee feedback regarding all aspects of training process and employer responsibilities.
The Faculty will prioritise the following areas during 2022 to improve the supervision provision across the region:
– Pilot the Minimum standard of supervision document in the North West and obtain feedback regarding its implementation
– Update the ‘Best Practice Guide’ in the North West
– Collaborate on a National bank of resources to support Supervision training with other regional Faculties.
North West Learning Disability and Autism Scoping Project – Consultant & Advanced Practitioners
Sarah Hadfield, Project Support Officer within the team has recently undertaken a 12 week secondment, alongside a subject matter expert, to evaluate the position of Consultant level and Advanced Practitioners across the North West working within Learning Disabilities and/or Autism. The project looked to understand employer expectations and support, identify existing skills and functions currently being delivered, and highlight any best practices that can be shared within secondary care settings. The findings would then look to support and inform how HEE can look to increase retention and create clear career pathways for Advanced Practitioner roles within Learning Disabilities and Autism now and in the future.
A wide stakeholder engagement exercise was carried out to identify numbers of Consultants and Advanced Practitioners within all three regions within the North West. This data was also able to identify the patient and service users age ranges within this workforce area. A range of surveys and focus groups were undertaken to identify the skills and functions, challenges, variance, and best practice within these roles. The report has identified a number of short, medium and long term recommendations for the North West Faculty to work with organisations seeking to develop advanced practice roles to ensure that they meet the patients and service users needs in the best possible way.
The findings have demonstrated lots of examples around how Advanced Practice has and will have the opportunity to positively impact the lives of Children, Young People, and Adults with a Learning Disability and/ or Autism, however there are also some clear challenges which will need to be addressed.
Liz Jemmet – Case Study
Liz Jemmett is a Paediatric Advanced Clinical Practitioner (ACP) in the 
TPD Face to Face meetings
We were able to get the TPD’s together for some face to face meetings recently. They were split over two days but it was a great opportunity to get to know each other and plan how the Faculty and TPD’s can work together to continue to support ACP trainees across the region.
The Faculty gave some updates about the commissioning of ACP places and they had an office induction. The TPD’s gave a summary of their projects and were able to give each other feedback and advice.
Both days were really productive and enjoyable.
The TPD’s bring a wealth of experience and enthusiasm to the days and the Faculty are really excited about the amazing range of projects that will go towards the objectives within the region.
February 2022 update
Advancing Practice 2022 – 23 Expression of Interest update
14th February 2022 was the closing date of the expressions of interest for HEE funding for 2022- 23 ACP Programmes. Nearly 90% of NHS Trusts within the North West completed a submission. 21% of the submissions were from Primary Care or Private Independent and Voluntary organisations with 79% NHS Trusts. The response has been significant during difficult times for the NHS with the impact of COVID during December 2021, January and February 2022 and the Faculty would like to thank organisations for your commitment in Advancing Practice.
The Faculty are now reviewing all expressions of interest and if there are any questions we will be contacting the identified person for further information. A decision will be made in April 2022 and communication of outcomes will be shared immediately.
If you have any queries during this time you are more than welcome to contact the faculty acp.nw@hee.nhs.uk
Susan Fletcher – Case Study
Susan Fletcher is an ACP in Stroke Services. This case study provides a great example of how an Occupational Therapist is working as an Advanced Clinical Practitioner and how Susan’s role covers the four pillars of Advanced Clinical Practice: Clinical, Leadership, Education and Research.
Case-Study-Susan-Fletcher-PDF-2Download
Learning Disability and Autism, North West Advanced and Consultant practice scoping review:
The team are pleased to announce that Sarah Hadfield, Project Support Officer within the team has recently been successful in securing a 12 week secondment which will deliver a scoping project to evaluate the position of Consultant level and Advanced Practitioners across the North West working within Learning Disabilities and/or Autism. The role will be carried out for a duration of 3 days per week, alongside Sarah’s substantive role. The project will look to understand employer expectations and support, identify existing skills and functions currently being delivered and understand any best practices that can be shared and learned within secondary care settings.
January 2022 update
One year on – The North West Faculty for Advancing Practice
It has been one year since the NW Regional Faculty was established with the team slowly growing over the last 12 months. The Faculty have overcome the challenges of establishing a completely new team in a virtual world working remotely due to the pandemic.
The Faculty now consists of 7 core team members, and 9 Training Programme Directors (TPD) on a 12 month secondment post. The TPD’s are speciality advisors who are engaging with trainee ACPs and their supervisors to develop collaborative working with the Faculty, strengthen feedback mechanisms and identify areas in which the Faculty can support organisations and our HEIs to improve the training experience for ACPs.
The priorities over the last year have been to understand and address the region’s workforce needs, provide regional leadership, commission high quality education and training, align commissioning with national standards, support education providers to gain Centre accreditation and to explore the supervision needs for the advanced practice workforce.
Progress has been made possible through the close collaboration with other HEE regional teams and their expertise, and our external stakeholders. Key achievements include:
– Scoping of the advanced practice primary care workforce and the identification of training needs, to be able to support those eligible through an e-Portfolio route for recognition of advanced level practice
– The delivery of a series of webinars to engage with multi-professional stakeholders
– The development and implementation of a revised process to identify workforce demand for 22-23
– Establishment of a baseline of advanced practitioners across primary and secondary care
– Accreditation of 3 HEI’s by the Centre for Advancing Practice with the remaining 7 all working towards accreditation over the next 18 months
– The development of a NW HEI ACP network
– Engagement and leadership at ICS level with the establishment of ACP Lead networks in two systems and a project lead to develop C&M
Building a recognised and visible advanced practitioner workforce is a priority for the NHS. There is a clear and identified need for highly experienced clinicians trained to an advanced level of practice. The Regional Faculty in collaboration with the Centre for Advancing Practice are driving pioneering workforce transformation for advanced practice across England.
The vision of the NW Regional Faculty is: To create and enable transformative partnerships to develop, embed and sustain Advanced Practitioners across the NW region who are fit for 21st century care and that appropriate use is made of their skills and expertise across an evolving health and social care system.
Greater Manchester’s Advanced Clinical Practitioner Employer Awareness Event
On Monday 17th January, Greater Manchester delivered an ACP employer event. This was to support employers to understand the funding available for the Advanced Practice Master’s programme. The virtual event covered A regional perspective on commissioning and funding for ACP training that Debra Allcock presented. Following Debra’s presentation other key speakers covered:
– apprenticeship overview,
– apprenticeship – financial aspects,
– writing a business case and
– the trainee ACP in Primary Care.
Delivering a Master Class in the Learning Disability and Autism ACP Credential
Debra Allcock delivered a Master Class to the trainees on the Edge Hill University and University of Cumbria’s Learning Disability and Autism ACP Credential course. The Master Class covered:
– personalised care,
– support plans and supported self-management
– social prescribing and capacity building.
The Edge Hill University’s students followed on with a discussion seminar looking at some of the posed questions and discussion points that was flagged in the Master Class. They started to pull out ethical issues associated with building capacity in the system and out in the communities.
GM ACP Workplace Supervision Study Day
On 31st January, the Greater Manchester ACP group held a supervision study day.
The Faculty were invited to speak at the event and Nick Worth discussed the support for supervision that is being developed both regionally and nationally.
It was an opportunity to introduce the new TPD team to those attending and build some new working relationships across Greater Manchester and beyond!
A range of speakers discussed what it takes to evidence working at an advanced level and how to demonstrate ‘level 7’ learning in all 4 pillars of ACP.
The opportunity to understand the challenges for ACP’s both in training and post-qualification surrounding supervision will help inform the future work within the Faculty in collaboration with the Greater Manchester ACP group.
December 2021 update
The North West Faculty for Advancing Practice have now recruited all their Training Programme Directors:
In early December, the Faculty welcomed the first of the Training Programme Directors (TPD’s) into HEE.
The TPD’s are Specialty Advisors that will support ACP trainees across the region and will work on projects to improve the provision and delivery of training in all health care settings.
The TPD’s that are joining the Faculty are:
Anna Riley – Surgery – started Dec 2021
Tanya Rumney – Allied Health professions – started Dec 2021
Martin Troedel – Urgent/emergency care, MSK and Frailty – started Jan 2022
Deepak Agnihotri – Learning Disability and Autism – started Jan 2022
Jaclyn Proctor – Medical/Respiratory – starting Feb 2022
Liz Jemmett – Paediatrics, Women’s Health and Midwifery – started Jan 2022
Liz Reilly – Primary care and Community – starting Feb 2022
Scott Murray – Primary care – start date TBC
Kay Roscoe – Mental Health – start date TBC
The launch of the Demand Led process for HEE funding for a ACP MSc programme
On Tuesday 4th January 2022, The faculty sent emails to key individuals to provide them details of how their organisations can express their interest for HEE funding for an ACP MSc programme.
Emails were sent to
NHS Trust’s designated lead. This is the organisation’s strategic lead. Any service ACP Leads or site ACP leads must submit their requests via their internal process. HEE will only be accepting the submissions from the identified ACP Lead. Please do contact us on acp.nw@hee.nhs.uk
Primary Care Training Hub ACP Leads – asking them to distribute the email to primary care organisations with a link to our webpage with all supporting documentation.
Contacts from our sign-up database – with a link to our webpage.
If you still have questions regarding the process, please do contact the faculty.
November 2021 update
During Advanced Practice Week (7-13 November), the Faculty for Advancing Practice across the north west, along with several regional advanced clinical practitioners (ACP) and leads delivered presentations at HEE’s Centre for Advancing Practice Virtual Conference 2021.
The four-day conference began on Monday 8 November and was held under the theme “Extraordinary People, Extraordinary care.”
Annabella Gloster, Regional Faculty Lead at the Faculty for Advancing Practice, delivered a presentation on influencing change across the region. Annabella delivered the session along with Diane Reid, Chair of the Greater Manchester Strategic ACP group, and Tracy Earley and Jill Billington, Chair and Deputy Chair of the Lancashire and South Cumbria ACP leads group.
The presentations gave an overview of the collaborative working between the faculty and Integrated Care Systems with details of ongoing workstreams and plans to develop a strategic group across Cheshire and Merseyside.
Lorraine Turner, Consultant Nurse Practitioner at The Christie NHS Foundation Trust, Emma Forster, Tracheostomy Specialist and Lead Practitioner, and Catherine Edwards, Advanced Specialist Practitioner (both at Lancashire Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust), also presented at the national conference highlighting the impact of their work as ACPs in clinical research and supporting COVID 19 recovery.
The Regional Faculty also delivered presentations at other north west events on the progress and vision of the faculty which was formed in January this year.
This included celebratory events at Go-To-Doc, Bolton NHS Foundation Trust and a virtual event hosted at Blackpool NHS Foundation Trust. The events were inspiring for employers, aspiring ACPs and celebrated the diversity, value and impact of ACPs in service transformation and patient care.
Webinars
The faculty for advancing practice has recently hosted a series of webinars throughout October and November to explain the role the Faculty provides and the educational pathways and training in place for trainee and existing Advanced Practitioners. The webinars also focused around speciality areas of clinical practice including Mental Health, Pharmacy and Primary Care which showcased the benefits Advancing Practice can provide within these and other areas.
All of our webinars are available on our page.
October 2021 update
Faculty and Primary Care Training Hubs scoping the ACP workforce in Primary Care
The Faculty for Advancing Practice and the three northwest Primary Care Training Hubs are working collaboratively to ensure all nurses, AHPs and pharmacists currently working at an advanced level have the opportunity to evidence and/or develop themselves against the multi-professional framework for Advanced Clinical Practice in England.
During August and September 2021 nurses, AHP’s and Pharmacists who identified as an advanced practitioner in primary care were asked to complete a survey for us to understand how their experience and qualification/s meet the multi-professional framework for advanced clinical practice for England.
The Results
There was a total of 349 eligible respondents. The breakdown for each ICS area is below:
Cheshire and Merseyside – 127
Greater Manchester – 120
Lancashire and South Cumbria – 97
North West – 5
Qualifications
162 had completed a MSc in Advanced Clinical Practice, 76 has completed another masters, 26 were currently undertaking the MSc in Advanced Clinical Practice, 85 had not completed a MSc and 10 of those were looking to commit to a MSc in the next 12 months.
NETs Survey results
The analysis of the NETS survey results from June/July 2021 were shared by the Quality team recently.
In the North West, 5 Trusts reached the threshold number of responses to be able to assess the student experiences within them.
The response rate for ACP’s across the North West increased from 9 in the previous survey to 44 this time around (the second highest in the country!).
From the responses analysed there were no Trusts in our region which raised concern however due to the way the tool requires a minimum threshold of responses, there may be areas that have not been identified and where the Faculty needs to provide extra support now or in the future.
We will continue to help promote the NETs survey as an important information gathering tool to help inform the Faculty about the standards of training that an ACP who is studying experiences.
The next NETs survey is now live and can be found https://poll.hee.nhs.uk/s/netsnov21/
Supervision for ACP trainees – A Gap Analysis
Nick and Sarah from the Faculty are conducting a gap analysis of the supervision for trainee ACP’s across the North West.
Over the past month, they have interviewed several ACP Programme Leads to obtain the HEI’s views regarding the supervision of their trainees. The aim is to complete all interviews with the remaining programme leads in the coming weeks.
Following this, the Faculty will seek feedback from Trusts, existing Supervisors and Trainees about their experiences of supervision in practice.
The combined analysis will help to inform the priorities required to support trainee ACP’s and supervisors across the region. The Faculty will continue to work collaboratively with our stakeholders to drive improvements for existing and future trainees.
We really appreciate the support and engagement with this work and will share the results and plans across the region in the New Year.
Advanced Clinical Practice Demand-Led process for 22/23 cohorts
The Faculty are leading on the Expression of Interest process for organisations requesting funding for the ACP MSc programme. The process this year will be looking at how we can best support our organisations NHS Trusts, Primary Care and the Private, Independent and Voluntary sectors.
Expressions of Interest must be completed by organisations and not potential students. The Faculty are recommending organisations to have appropriate internal processes in place for Advanced Clinical Practitioners and are providing supporting tools for organisations to utilise.
Below are key dates:
November 2021 – Get Ready emails will be going out to identified ACP Leads or the designated individual overseeing advance practice
November 2021 – Communications to reach Primary Care and Private, Independent and Voluntary organisations where we do not have an identified lead
Tuesday 4th January 2022 – Emails with the link to the Expression of Interest form will be shared
Monday 14th February 2022 – Closing date for Expression of Interest form
April 2022 – Organisations will be advised of the outcome of the funding allocation
May 2022 – mid August 2022 – Organisations to complete recruitment process
If you are a Service Lead, a Directorate Manager or someone who is looking to become an Advanced Practitioner please do seek advice from your ACP Lead within your organisation or please contact the Faculty for us to direct you to the right person. Acp.nw@hee.nhs.uk
Webinars
During October and November, the Faculty for Advancing practice are delivering a series of webinars. If you have missed those webinars, you will be able to view the recording on our webpage.
For the webinars that have not yet taken place, please email acp.nw@hee.nhs.uk for the link to register to attend.
September 2021 update
Future Horizon’s Conference – Annabella was the keynote Speaker
Liverpool John Moores University (LJMU) hosted their first regional advanced practice conference: Advancing Practice – future horizons, innovations and best practice on 10th September.
Professor Raphaela Kane opened the conference highlighting the importance of the need to demonstrate continuous service improvement and quality through advanced practice.
Annabella Gloster – NW Regional Faculty lead was the keynote speaker and shared her personal journey and a historical perspective of Advanced Practice in the UK. Annabella expressed the need to continue to nurture the adaptability and leadership of advanced practitioners to enable them to drive evidence-based research, inspire and educate the future workforce and to utilise the evidence to ensure our patients are getting best evidence-based care. ACP’s are providing the solution to our future healthcare system and they need to continue to inspire, innovate and influence in this role.
The event had a range of speakers with videos of individual ACP’s sharing ‘a day in the life of an ACP’; innovation in a virtual world through adapting the assessment of trainee ACPs and an overwhelming theme of the need for more research and time allowed for ACP’s to enact this pillar to develop and strengthen the evidence base.
The event was a huge success with over 400 delegates registered for the event .
GM Primary Care Training Hub Conference
On 15th September Nick Worth and Liam Hagerty represented the Faculty at the Greater Manchester Training Hub annual conference.
This face-to-face conference was enabling AHP’s and Nurses to come together to network and gain educational updates from a wide range of speakers. The event was attended by over 120 delegates on each of the two days (14th/15th September) it was held at the Kings House Conference Centre.
Nick and Liam had a stand and enjoyed speaking to the delegates and answering all of their ACP related questions. It was great meeting people who had only previously been ‘virtual connections’.
The Faculty look forward to attending more of these type of events in the future as restrictions allow.
Recruitment of TPD and their role
The Faculty have been advertising for up to 10 Training Programme Director (TPD’s) secondment opportunities to assist in the support of all ACP trainees. The TPD job advertisement closed on 26th September and interviews are scheduled for mid-October with a proposed start date towards the end of 2021.
The TPD’s will be specialty advisors and the ‘eyes and ears’ of the Faculty across the North West, helping to make the training of the ACP’s as productive and supportive as possible.
The plan is to recruit the TPD’s to cover the wide range of ACP trainees in all healthcare sectors and will play a major part in shaping the future of ACP training in the North West.
Each regional Faculty for Advancing Practice is looking to recruit into similar roles, but the North West region had led the way in developing the job role.
There has been a lot of interest in these positions and we hope that they can provide some exciting opportunities for the successful candidates – watch out for future updates!
August 2021 update
Meet our new team member
Catherine Gregg – Administrative Support: Since September 201 Catherine has worked in the Finance Litigation team at DWF Law LLP. During this time she obtained a certificate in higher education in Legal Studies. Catherine started her legal career as an apprentice but secured a promotion to a Paralegal role. Through excelling in this role Catherine was subsequently promoted to a Legal Delivery Team Lead in October 2020. However, it became apparent that this career path was no longer the route she wished to pursue and better suited to a more rewarding career.
Therefore, the opportunity at HEE was perfect for Catherine’s ambitions and feels that her experience, aspirations and character will have a positive impact on the faculty. Catherine is really looking forward to the future with the team.
Reviewing the process for funding ACP programmes
The Faculty for Advancing Practice across the North West has been working closely with all key stakeholders to review current processes for approval of funding for ACP’s in order to prepare to transition to a national process by 2023/24. This will ensure the right measures are put in place for and how improvements can be made to support organisations with workforce planning, service need, timely recruitment and support for ACP trainees. Below is our roadmap for the initial review, and plan to commence working groups to make improvements to our process with dissemination to begin in Autumn 2021.
Roadmap
Road map *written version of the graphic
1. Jan – April: Faculty observe 21 EOI
2. Apr – May: Review principles document with commissioning team
3. May: Draft transition plan
4. Jun – Jul: Meeting with each ICS team and commissioning team
5. Jul – Aug: Develop process map
6. Aug: Meeting with all teams to review process map
7. Oct: Sign off process map
8. Oct: Set up task and finish group for identified quality improvements
Supporting our ACP trainee – NETS
The National Education and Training Survey (NETS) was open from 22 June and 23 July 2021.
The North West Regional response rate was greatly increased within advanced practice trainees for this edition of the survey.
A massive thank you to all of the ACP trainees in the region that completed the survey – a breakdown of the responses are:
246 AP learners answered across the whole of HEE
44 (18%) of those were from the North West
In the regions ‘response chart’, we came second overall! The previous time the survey was conducted, there were only nine North West AP responses from a National total of 115.
The survey results will be published in early September and will make a real difference to ACP trainees and the support they receive. It informs where resources from HEE are placed and identifies where extra support may be required.
The next NETS is planned for November 2021, so keep a lookout via the HEE communications on social media for when it opens – it’s the opportunity for you to have your say about your ACP training!
Supervision for ACPs
The Centre for Advancing Practice has created some short video resources to accompany the ‘Workplace Supervision for Advanced Clinical Practice: An integrated multi-professional approach for practitioner development’ guidance. The videos provide practice insights for each of the fundamentals of supervision set out in the guidance and are a useful resource for everyone who is either developing or providing supervision for trainee advanced practitioners.
Are you an ACP Lead trying to develop good supervision practice in your organisation?
Have you been asked to supervise a trainee ACP and want some more guidance about the role?
Are you interested in how to ensure the best practice for supervision?
The links to the videos can be found on the Centre for Advancing Practice website under resources.
July 2021 update
Meet our new team members
Sarah Hadfield – Programme Support Officer: Sarah joined the Faculty in June 2021 and will support the delivery and implementation of the Faculty’s objectives, its projects & initiatives and the recruitment, assessment and supervision of advanced practice trainees within the region. Sarah joined the NHS in 2003 and has worked within Primary Care Trusts and Clinical Commissioning Groups up until her appointment with HEE. Sarah is passionate and committed to ensuring better outcomes for patients, and is also currently undertaking an APM Project Management Qualification (PMQ).
Liam Hagerty – Administrative Support: Liam joined the Faculty for Advancing Practice in July 2021 as the Administrative Support for the team. He will be responsible for administrative duties and ensuring the faculty operates smoothly. Liam graduated from Liverpool Hope University in 2018, studying Human Biology and Sociology. He went on to find employment with Bradford District Care Trust where he worked as an administrator for various community services, such as the Podiatry and Palliative services. Seeing how these services work, and hearing first-hand how patients are affected by them, led to his drive to improve the patient journey. During the pandemic, Liam moved from Bradford to Manchester, where he was able to find a new challenge in his new employment by Health Education England.
Communication and Engagement
The Faculty’s First workshop at Cheshire & Merseyside’s People Summit: The Faculty for Advancing Practice across the North West (NW) delivered a workshop at the first virtual Cheshire and Merseyside People Summit in June. An overview of the faculty with our vision, and priorities for the next year and how they relate to the People Plan was presented along with case studies of the impact of advanced practice and lessons learned during the pandemic.
An ACP working in primary Care specialising in mental health joined us to share their journey and role to showcase how services can be transformed and enable a workforce that is fit for the future. The workshop concluded with participants invited to share their hopes and challenges and a pledge to commit to support the development of a workforce with ACPs.
Annabella Gloster, Keynote Speaker at East Lancashire Hospitals and Lancashire Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust’s First ACP CPD Event: Annabella, NW Regional Faculty Lead, delivered the vision and ambitions of the Faculty across the NW for advancing practice. The event had a range of clinical workshops to attend (virtually) delivered by a range of experts and concluded with a best poster award submitted by practitioners (trainees and ACPs) at this event. All submitted posters evidenced innovative and inspiring pieces of work. The event was a huge success with excellent feedback from those who attended and a need to hold another event in the future as it had a positive impact on their learning and development.
Developing our Collaborative North West ACP HEI Network: The Faculty is very happy to announce that the development of an NW ACP HEI network. This network will be a powerful and key group in pushing ACP learning forwards in the coming years.
This network is to enable the NW HEI’s to come together to share experiences and challenges that come with running ACP programmes. It encourages open discussion and the ability to ask each other questions in order to improve the ACP Trainees opportunities to develop.
The first meeting was held virtually on 30 June 2021. Every HEI in the region were represented, largely by the ACP programme Leads. It involved a great discussion about setting standards for Supervision within their programmes and identify ways of supporting the Supervisors and Trainees in practice.
The next meeting is planned for the beginning of September when the topic of the meeting will be the HEE’s accreditation process for ACP programmes.