Advanced Nurse Practitioner Enhanced Care Pathway Sarah Scott

Advanced Nurse Practitioner Enhanced Care Pathway Sarah Scott Advanced Nurse Practitioner Droitwich and Ombersley Cluster

What is an Advanced Nurse Practitioner? • NMC definition (2010): • ‘highly experienced and educated members of the care team who are able to diagnose and treat’ …. . and are able to ‘take a comprehensive patient history’, ‘carry out physical examinations’, ‘use their expert knowledge’ …. ‘to identify the potential diagnosis’ and ‘make a final diagnosis’

What skills are required? • Preferably at Masters level: – Advanced adult assessment – Independent prescribing • Experience • Good communication skills – Liaising with extended care team, enhanced care team, GPs, other health professionals, patients, family

What do I do? • Key elements of my role: – Proactive case management of patients with one or more long term conditions and patients with complex health needs living in the community setting – Proactive management of frail elderly living in the community setting – Management of acute exacerbation

Benefits for GPs • Reduction in GP home visits • Reduction in GP telephone consultations • Reduction in unplanned hospital admissions and premature admission to long term care establishments

Benefits for patients • High patient satisfaction – Time spent with patients – Patient-nurse relationship • “Having someone to call”, “I don’t want to bother my GP”, “my GP is too busy” – leading to a reduction in delayed intervention • Timely intervention • I usually have a quicker response time than the GP

Challenges • Can be difficult to find nurses with Advanced Practitioner skills – Hard to recruit nurses with this skill-set – Costly and time consuming to develop existing staff • Independent prescribing • Advanced adult assessment • Not all staff willing or capable of being developed • Advanced Nurse Practitioner is not a universally understood concept – Among patients and other health professionals

References Nursing and Midwifery Council (2010) The proposed framework for the standard for postregistration nursing – February 2005. Nursing and Midwifery Council. London