To become an accredited advanced practitioner, you will need to complete either a taught or ePortfolio route. The availability of the ePortfolio route is not open ended; its continuing availability will be dependent on the remaining number of existing, experienced advanced practitioners who need to be recognised as such.
Taught Route
Many Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) across the Midlands offer the 3-year (part-time) MSc in Advanced Clinical Practice. Depending on which MSc course you choose, this will start annually in semester 1 (from September) and some courses also have a semester 2 intake (from January). To search for a list of accredited programmes please visit the centre for advancing practice website here.
There are three funding routes to completing the taught MSc in Advanced Clinical Practice:
- Apprenticeship Route: This is a funded MSc in Advanced Clinical Practice. The tuition fees are funded through the employing organisation’s apprenticeship levy and £2,600 per annum supervision support is funded by Health Education England.
- Commissioned Route: This is a funded MSc in Advanced Clinical Practice. Tuition fees of £2667 per annum and £2,600 per annum supervision support are funded by Health Education England.
- Top Up Route: This is for people who have already completed one or two relevant modules encompassed within the MSc in Advanced Clinical Practice. Existing modules can be topped up to the full MSc in Advanced Clinical Practice over no more than 2 years and costing no more than £4,550.
Above is our standard offer for funding advanced practice training, however we do occasionally offer enhanced funding offers for certain specialities on a time limited basis and these are communicated separately to relevant organisations.
Funding for any of these routes cannot be accessed individually it needs to be planned in collaboration with your employer and Advanced Practice Lead/ Education Lead.
To secure funding you firstly need to discuss with your employer that they wish to develop you as a trainee Advanced Practitioner, and they have workforce development plans for a prospective Advanced Practitioner role for you on completion of training. Once that workforce development need has been established, to access funding you will need to liaise with your employing organisation’s Advanced Practitioner lead or education and training lead (or for primary care, the Advanced Practitioner lead or education and training lead within your Primary Care Training Hub).
These are the general requirements of funding that need to be in place:
- Before using commissioning funding, organisations should firstly consider utilising apprenticeship levy funding and accessing MSc ACP apprenticeship courses, which are now widely available at all universities across the Midlands region.
- An Advanced Practitioner training post should be provided throughout the trainee’s education period.
- The employer should have in place a clear workforce development plan for the Advanced Practitioner role to demonstrate that it is one of the organisational priorities in line with their service requirements, so there is guaranteed employment in an Advanced Practitioner post on qualification by the sponsoring employer (or within the Training Hub area in the case of primary care).
- Appropriate workplace clinical support, supervision, and assessment to be provided by employer i.e. the employer must ensure there is a suitably qualified supervisor for each Advanced Practice trainee in correspondence with the requirements of HEE’s (2022) guidance for Advanced practice workplace supervision: Minimum standards for supervision and HEE’s (2020) guidance on Workplace Supervision for Advanced Clinical Practice: An integrated multi-professional approach to practitioner development.
- The employer commits to providing a suitable learning environment for the Advanced Practitioner trainees, in line with the requirements of the Health Education England Quality Framework.
- Sufficient study leave should be provided to enable timetabled attendance at university to avoid Advanced Practitioner trainees having to take either unpaid leave or annual leave for university days.
- Appropriate advanced practice governance should be in place in line with HEE’s (2017) Multi-professional framework for advanced clinical practice in England. Organisations can self-assess their progress towards this using the Governance Maturity Matrix
ePortfolio Route
The e-Portfolio (supported) Route is designed to enable recognition with the Centre for Advancing Practice of existing, experienced advanced practitioners, regularly working clinically in advanced practitioner roles, who have already completed their advanced practice experiential and educational learning before 2017 when HEE’s Multi-professional framework for advanced clinical practice in England was published.
Application for this route is voluntary and there are three main stages of the ePortfolio (supported) Route:
- Expressions of interest and application
- Learning need analysis (LNA)
- Completion of an e-Portfolio
Eligibility Criteria
- Existing advanced practitioner employed in an advanced practice clinical role in an NHS commissioned service (confirmed by advanced practice lead or equivalent)
- Employer support for completion needed
The completion of the e-Portfolio is over a 12-month period for successful applicants the relevant HEI is awarded £1,000 for assessment of their portfolio.
Further information including dates for the next round of applications can be found on the ePortfolio webpage.
Advanced Practice in Primary Care
If you are working in primary care, the requirements for funding are the same as above, however you will need to contact your local training hub.