South West Faculty Update October to December 2023

Welcome to our fourth Faculty update of 2023. In this issue, we will bring you the latest developments during October, November & December.

This edition falls during the festive season, so the South West Faculty would like to wish you all a merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Photo by Annie Spratt on Unsplash

Over the past few months, we have been working hard to get funding out to the 502 trainees we are supporting at various stages throughout their advanced practice education. Please see the previous update for a breakdown of growth in the numbers of trainees we are supporting over the past few years.

In addition to this we have merged the trainee and funding handbooks into one easy to navigate version, that answers the questions that we are commonly asked as well as outline the funding offer for the year ahead. This is now available on our webpage for you to access.

Of course, the main highlight during these few months has been advanced practice week, from the 6th to the 10th of November, of which there was a lot to celebrate and showcase from across the South West.


National Advancing Practice Conference 8-9 November 2023

The National Advancing Practice Conference took place on Wednesday and Thursday of advancing practice week. On show were some remarkable examples of advanced practice innovation and developments from across the country. Thank you to all who joined us for the event, it was inspiring to see so many delegates and presenters representing the South West region.

For those with access to the conference platform, all the sessions were recorded and are now available to view.

Below is a list of sessions and videos that showcased the exceptional work going on in the South West.

Why I Love Being An Advanced Practitioner


Towards Sustainable Advanced Practice Supervision - Conference presentation Nov 2023
Towards Sustainable Advanced Practice Supervision

Our Advanced Practice Education and Training Development Lead, Steve Blakeway took part in a session exploring the core capabilities for practitioners who are supervising colleagues as they progress to advanced level practice.

Diverse Workforce to Tackle Health Inequalities - Conference presentation Nov 2023
Diverse Workforce to Tackle Health Inequalities

Our Regional Deputy Lead and Chair for the Advanced Practice Inclusivity group, Girish Lakhanpal, discussed Health Inequalities, and co-hosted a session with Dr Habib Naqvi, the Chief Executive of the NHS Race and Health Observatory.

Developing our National Voice - Conference presentation Nov 2023
Developing our National Voice

Our Advance Practice ICS Lead for Dorset, Sue Close joined other ICS leads from round the country to promote the value of an ICB-wide advanced practice role and discuss the benefits of system-wide collaborative working.

Primary Care Advanced Practice Governance – The Journey so far in the South West - Conference presentation Nov 2023
Primary Care Advanced Practice Governance – The Journey so far in the South West

Steve Blakeway, Advanced Practice Education and Training Development Lead, and Lou Buckle Advanced Practice Education & Development Specialist Lead discussed Advanced Practice Governance. The South West Faculty were able to ensure 100% of South West Primary Care employers with new Advanced Practice Trainees returned a completed Governance Maturity Matrix.

A future worth advancing in conversation with the Faculty Leads - Conference presentation Nov 2023
A future worth advancing in conversation with the Faculty Leads

The Advanced Practice Regional Faculty Leads answered questions posed by delegates and discussed some of the plans and challenges for the future.


National Conference Poster Competition

Congratulations to Emily Davies, Mandy Waldon and Philippa Nash from Wiltshire Health and Care, who won 2nd place in the poster competition with their Advancing Practice to support our Wiltshire NHS@Home Service poster.

National Conference Poster Competition - Wiltshire Health and Care entry

Day in the life of an advanced practitioner

On social media we met Jemma Baker, an Advanced Practitioner working in same day emergency care (SDEC) at Gloucestershire Hospitals.

A series for clips telling us all about her day can be found on Instagram

Day in the life of an advanced practitioner on Instagram

We have launched two new videos relating to our Advancing Practice in Emerging Areas Workforce Transformation Resource

This resource, is designed to be implemented locally by Integrated Care Systems or organisations. It will support, and standardise the approach to workforce transformation for advanced practice in emerging areas.

You can learn more about how to use the resource, as well as view and download the supporting materials here.


Episode 16, Advanced Practice in Radiography
NHS England Podcast Graphic

In this episode of the NHSE South West Advancing Practice podcast series we explore the role of Advanced Practice within Radiography. We discuss the importance of supervision and governance, and discuss how the non-clinical pillars of advanced practice are important within an advanced practitioners job plan.

Host: Martin Nelson, NHS England WT&E, Advanced Practice Education & Training Development Lead

Guests: Richard Evans, Advanced Practitioner & James Reed, Reporting Radiographer and Co-Chair of the Advanced Practice Steering Group. Torbay and South Devon NHS Foundation Trust


Episode 15, Advanced Practice Workforce Transformation in Emerging Areas
NHS England Podcast Graphic

In this episode of the NHSE South West Advancing Practice podcast series we are revisiting the Allied Health Professional in advanced practice conversation with two of our associate workforce leads. We talk through the insights and learning from their work into emerging areas of advanced practice and hear about the resources that have been developed to help take these conversations forward.

Host: Rachael Brandreth, (NHS England WT&E, Advanced Practice Education & Training Development Lead).

Guests: Jennifer Lloyd & Luke Cunningham, (NHS England WT&E, Advanced Practice Workforce Transformation Associates)

Find all our South West Podcasts here


Jennifer Phillips, Educational Design Project Support Officer

Firstly, a huge thank you to everyone who has filled in the 2023 National Education and Training Survey (NETS) and to those that gave time to their trainees to fill in the survey.

For those who are unsure of what NETS is it stands for the National Education and Training Survey (NETS) and is for all health and care trainees and students across all clinical learning environments. The annual survey offers AP trainees the opportunity to provide feedback on their clinical placements such as supervision, induction, support, etc.

This year NETS opened on 3rd October for 8 weeks and we are pleased to report that we saw 46% of trainees responding to the survey. This has given us the highest response rate when compared to any other regional Advanced Practice Faculty and one of the highest return rates for any professional group both regionally and nationally. Once again, we would like to thank everyone who has engaged with the survey.

Feedback received is incredibly important to us, it is used to pick out themes, which is used to inform projects to work on for the coming year. We expect the results to come out in early February and will be available on the NHS England website, so please take a look when they are available.

NETS Banner 2023

Diane Keeling & Rachael Brandreth, Advanced Practice Education and Training Development Leads

As Training and Education Leads for Advanced Practice, Rachael and Diane were delighted to represent the Southwest Faculty for Advancing Practice at DEMEC conference 2023. They were able to raise awareness on the benefits of multi-disciplinary training in relation to supervision and leadership skills for Advanced Practitioners and Educational Supervisor and Educational Leaders.

The poster on Multi-Professional Supervision Training submitted by the SW team highlighted how current PGME supervision training could be developed as an efficient and effective resource for all those who supervise Advanced Practitioners. Addressing the core requirements as a Multi professional group, whilst using a modular format to develop specific skills for each role.
The parallel session brought together and built upon learning from the first national programme developing clinical educational leadership skills and knowledge through a multi-professional lens and the benefits and challenges of learning together in this way, as well as considerations for delivery of learning like this.

The conference was a great platform to connect agendas and bring forward learning from areas such as advanced practice for other areas. A particularly interesting session was delivered by Dr Ming from the USA outlining her thoughts, as a leader in the field of artificial intelligence (AI), about how we can utilise AI in an informed way to enhance clinical education, and encouraged us to be proactive so that it becomes a useful tool and not a ill thought through solution which detracts from effective learning.

Diane Keeling - DEMEC Poster