Welcome to our third Faculty update of 2023. In this issue, we will bring you the latest developments during July, August and September.
South West Regional Update
New faculty email
As part of the transition of HEE into the new NHS England, former HEE email addresses have been migrated onto nhs.net. This transition is aimed at facilitating collaboration and providing improved functionality across the whole NHS. Please make a note of our new general AP email address and remove the previous HEE one.
If you have sent an email to our general HEE email address it has been received, a forwarding rule will be in place for a period of time.
england.advancingpractice.sw@nhs.net
Scoping
The annual demand scoping for 2023 is now complete, and as a Faculty we wish to say a huge thank you to all the organisations and individuals across the region who have taken the time to engage with this process, providing required information and supporting both trainees and their supervisors to be ready to commence their advanced practice journeys. 2023 has once again shown the need and demand for advanced practice training in the South West, and we are pleased to be working with some new organisations for this year, as well as continuing to support those we have worked with in previous years.
The final tally for the year is 302 new trainee advanced practitioners being funded by the Faculty, whilst we continue to support those continuing their MSc advanced practice programmes from previous annual demand scoping exercises. This years applications include our first MSc Advanced Practice trainees in Maternity, as well as an increase in community based roles.
All new trainees and their supervisors are offered support from the Faculty for their journey to becoming an NHS England Centre for Advancing Practice recognised advanced practitioner. Alongside trainee and supervisor support, the Faculty’s Education and Training Development Leads continue to support training development and ongoing involvement in networks and communities of practice across the South West. Please drop the team an email if you have any questions related to advanced practice development or want to be included in any communities of practice: england.advancingpractice.sw@nhs.net.
The next annual demand scoping survey will open in February 2024. The Faculty’s Advanced Practice Education and Development Specialist Lead will be in touch with Advanced Practice Leads & Nominated Individuals across the region, to provide ongoing support in the interim months alongside the relevant Integrated Care System Advanced Practice Lead in readiness for the next round of scoping.
National Advanced Practice Updates
Save the Date: National Conference 8th & 9th November 2023
The Centre for Advancing Practice Conference dates have been announced, so please block them in your diary. The event will be free to attend and will include a blend of inspiring and thought-provoking speakers, networking and a range of leaders from the community. The theme for this year is a future worth advancing.
Registration for tickets is not yet open, but please sign up to our mailing list to be made aware of when this does open.
If you would like to submit a poster for the conference, here are some important timelines to note.
- Application portal for submissions is now open.
- Deadline for poster submissions – 13 October 2023
- Conference – 8 and 9 November 2023
- Poster vote results – 9 November 2023 4pm
For more information please visit:
Consultant practice self-assessment tool
The Centre for Advancing Practice has launched a new self-assessment tool. This supports the career progression and development from Advanced Practice to Consultant Practice.
NHS Long Term Workforce Plan
This is the first comprehensive workforce plan for the NHS, putting staffing on a sustainable footing in order to improve patient care. It focuses on retaining existing talent alongside the biggest recruitment drive in the NHS. Advanced practice plays a key part in this plan and has ambitious targets attached with it. The Faculty will continue supporting all organisations across the region and ensure that the development of advanced practice has the appropriate governance and quality assurance to ensure that patient safety is maintained with the workforce growth.
For any questions or advice on your local advanced practitioner workforce, please contact your organisation/training hub AP lead or the Faculty using our updated email england.advancingpractice.sw@nhs.net.
Advanced Practice Supervisor Capabilities Document
This document contains guiding principles for supervisor learning and development for practitioners who are supervising colleagues as they progress to advanced level practice. It should be considered in conjunction with Centre for Advancing Practice supervision guidance and minimum standards.
South West Advanced Practice Podcast Series
Episode 14, Mental Health
In this podcast episode, we talk to the Cornwall Partnership NHS Foundation Trust to explore the challenges and benefits of advanced practice in mental health. They share their journey of implementing advanced practice within the Trust, taking us through their strategic planning for the training and supervision. They discuss the importance of multi-professional advanced practice which will improve patient care and encourage a holistic approach.
Host: Fiona Ramsay, Advancing Practice Supervision & Assessment Lead for Mental Health, Learning Disability & Autism, NHS England, South West Faculty for Advancing Practice
Guests: Jodie Ley, Advanced Clinical Practitioner/ Consultant Nurse and Advanced Practice Lead for Mental Health, Cornwall Partnership NHS Foundation Trust. William Lee, Consultant Liaison Psychiatrist, Royal Cornwall Hospital. Lucy Bentley, Trainee Advanced Practitioner in the Psychiatric Liaison Team, Royal Cornwall Hospital
Episode 13, Musculoskeletal (MSK)
This episode of the South West Advancing Practice podcast series explores the role of Advanced Practice within the field of Musculoskeletal (MSK) health. We review the impact of MSK conditions on population health and the potential scope of multi-professional MSK Advanced Practice across healthcare settings. We also discuss the upcoming MSK Advanced Practice Credential and the role this will have in developing the future MSK workforce across the four pillars of Advanced Practice.
Host: Simon Ingram, Advancing Practice Supervision & Assessment Lead for Physiotherapy and MSK, NHS England, South West Faculty for Advancing Practice
Guests: Susie Durrell, Consultant Physiotherapist, Gloucestershire Advanced Practice ICB Lead, Gloucestershire Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust
Nick Sullivan, Regional Faculty Lead for Advancing Practice – NHS England, London Faculty for Advancing Practice.
Listen to all our faculty podcasts here:
South-West Musculoskeletal Emergency and Urgent Care Community of Practice
Claire Guthrie
Musculoskeletal advanced practice encompasses a diverse range of clinical sub-specialities including urgent and emergency care. The aim of this role is to ensure those presenting to urgent treatment centres, minor injury units and emergency departments with musculoskeletal complaints are assessed and managed by the right person, first time in a single episode of care. Local service evaluation data has demonstrated advanced MSK practitioners are effective in the provision of high quality and timely care, including reducing onward referral rates and repeat attendances, when compared with other emergency and urgent care colleagues (see attached).
As the roles of musculoskeletal advanced practitioners have expanded within urgent treatment centres and emergency departments across the region, the requirement for peer support and clarity over scope of practice has become apparent. The RCEM curriculum provides a broad overview covering the breadth of emergency care but there is no nationally directed governance or training structure specifically for MSk advanced practitioners in emergency care roles. Consequently, a group of MSK advanced practitioner’s in the South West have collaborated to create a community of practice. We aim to provide peer support for existing and new clinicians into emergency and urgent care roles and have representation from Somerset, Bristol, Gloucestershire, Wiltshire, Bath and Dorset. We have started to work towards creating a shared capability framework to support training pathways for new physiotherapists stepping into these settings and to provide a governance structure for those already in post. Longer term goals include delivering formal teaching in specialist skills required in the emergency and urgent care settings, such as fracture reduction, wound management and head injury assessment. We also hope to inspire others to consider similar roles by showcasing the impact of advanced MSk practitioners at the front of the MSk pathway. A number of the group are on HEE funded educational routes such as HEE accredited AP MSc (apprenticeship) route or equivalence routes such as the supported ePortfolio route to AP recognition. We would love to hear from others interested in joining our community of practice or those considering implementing MSk roles in emergency or urgent care centres.
South West Case Study
Radiology – Luke Popplestone
Meet Luke, a trainee advanced practitioner in the interventional radiology department and lead for the ultrasound-guided cannulation service at the University Hospitals Plymouth NHS Trust. With 14 years of experience in interventional radiology, Luke is a mentor for his colleagues, providing a wealth of insights and support. Luke performs a variety of clinical procedures, including fluoroscopic guided lumbar punctures, CT (Computed Tomography) guided biopsies and diagnostic cerebral angiography.
We recently spoke with Luke to learn more about his decision to pursue advanced practice, the benefits it brings and future aspirations.
South West Research Network Update
The following Advanced Practice Research Conference is available NEXT MONTH and is free to attend:
Getting Unstuck: Progressing your Research Pillar in Advanced Practice
This is a free, in-person 1-day region-wide event for established Advanced Practitioners who wish to build the research activity and research leadership of their role.
As a collective of interdisciplinary Advanced Practice clinicians and experienced Researchers, we will explore:
- – The ‘what’ and ‘how’ of developing your research pillar
– Becoming a named author and presenting your research
– Opportunities to Further your Research Pillar / Career
– Develop essential skills to use evidence in practice
– Develop skills as a Principal Investigator (PI), through the Essentials of PI / Associate PI workshop
– Networking Opportunities
Date: Thursday 19th October 0930-1630
Venue: Yeovil campus
Are you an advanced practitioner with MSc level experience or higher in research or quality improvement projects?
The University of Plymouth’s School of Health Professions have an exciting opportunity to offer Visiting Specialist roles to interested allied health advanced practitioners to engage with supervision of our new cohort of postgrad students on full time Masters routes. We have a sizable cohort of international students this year who, whilst registered and would not require placement hours or any placement-related support from you, would love to be supervised in their Project Design and Dissertation modules by real world Advanced Practitioners!
In line with our regions ‘Developing a Research Skilled Workforce’ project, we are aware that we have so much untapped talent in our South West workforce; people skilled in an area of research and practice that lack ringfenced time to work up a research funding application or explore the literature to synthesise knowledge and inform practice and service development… This opportunity offers a collaboration with highly motivated post-registration Masters students who do have protected time to design and undertake research but may lack project ideas or knowledge of UK systems to inform these projects. The taught research modules and wider academic team will train students in research methods and academic writing – we need you to assist us with personalised support and facilitation of projects. This could be an ideal opportunity for personal professional development in education and research pillars whilst also potentially advancing knowledge in your field of practice. The role would require 15 hours of your time in one hour blocks between 2nd October 2023 and 7th September 2024. You do not need to be experienced across a breadth of research methods to supervise, just confident in a specified area. To find out more about the commitment required of this role, payment, timescales and support, and express interest or to access a link with a member of the postgrad team to discuss further, please visit: https://plymouth.onlinesurveys.ac.uk/university-of-plymouth-masters-sohp-project-design-and-dis
Are you interested in hearing more about advancing practice research in the South West?
The aim of our network is to help connect clinicians and academics from across our region who would like to develop research skills into everyday advanced practice.
Sign up to our advanced practice research network here
Region Update: Bristol, North Somerset and South Gloucestershire (BNSSG)
Lizzie Bradshaw, Integrated Care System (ICS) Advanced Practice Lead.
Bristol, North Somerset and South Gloucestershire (BNSSG) Integrated Care System (ICS) serves a population of 1.1 million people. The system comprises of ten partner organisations. These organisations include three Local Authorities, two acute NHS Trusts, Community and Social Care providers, General Practice and the Integrated Care Board.
Advanced Practice roles had been developing organically across the ICS for several years, which meant there was variety in how these roles were implemented between providers. To help with standardising this, funding from NHSE (WT&E) was used to support the development of an advanced practice ICB lead, who established a community of practice for BNSSG Advanced Practice Leads in early 2023. This group has representation from all providers within the system and has a collective aim to promote the role of advanced practitioners, share examples of and to reduce the variation in advanced practice posts across the system.
Numbers of advanced practice trainees within BNSSG are increasing, with three new providers beginning NHSE advanced practice funded posts in 2023-2024. This group has overseen development of many of these posts, and championed expansion of trainee AP roles into emerging areas such as community, mental health and social care. BNSSG is only the third ICS in the country to have a social care trainee; based in in the care home sector. Shared advanced practice roles are also springing up across services including out of hours, community, mental health and ambulance service roles.
Governance is also a key agenda item for the group. The Advance Practice Governance Maturity Matrix is a document produced by NHSE that allows providers to self-assess their progress on the governance of advanced practice. The commitment from providers looking to cooperatively support their trainees has been incredible, with a Maturity Matrix completed for all providers in BNSSG that are training APs. These matrices have been pooled across the ICS and themes identified to guide the focus of future advanced practice development. Work is ongoing to support the case for ongoing investment in advanced practice leadership roles throughout the system.
However, there is still lots of work to be done towards the development and understanding of advanced practice roles. In particular, educating employers on the importance and incorporation of all 4 pillars of advanced practice into job plans and descriptions. This is helped by the recent NHS Long-Term Workforce Plan (NHS England » NHS Long Term Workforce Plan June 2023) which contained a strong focus on the expansion and development of Advanced Practice roles.
BNSSG is working towards developing these posts; building on and learning from developed areas of advanced practice such as emergency care and primary care whilst also looking to innovate and identify potential new and emerging areas for diverse AP role development in the future.
References: Our local Integrated Care System – NHS BNSSG ICB