This module has been specifically designed to enable integration of the learning and personal/professional development that occurs during study of the MSc Advanced Clinical Practice and your preparation for the role of Advanced Clinical Practitioner. The module content is designed to allow you to critically explore and debate both national and international perspectives on advanced clinical practice, and their underpinning evidence base. It recognises that there are marked regional, national and international variations in how advanced practice roles are articulated and enacted, as well as variations across the different healthcare professions. However it also recognises the growing consensus around the four pillars of advanced clinical practice, leadership, research and education as the key hallmarks of advanced practice, and takes these as the basis for the syllabus content. It also recognises that advanced practitioners work at the interface between their own profession and medicine, and the importance of those working in advanced practitioner roles demonstrating the clinical capabilities that this higher level of responsibility and professional autonomy requires. The module will thus enable you to explore and identify what advanced practice means within the context of your own professional practice role, enable you to demonstrate the clinical capabilities required for your advanced practitioner role, and equip you to further develop your role as an advanced clinical practitioner beyond the end of the module.
Core content will include:
•Analysis of the concept and scope of advanced practice focusing on both national and international perspectives, and exploration of the interface of advanced practice accountability, clinical governance, autonomy, specialist practice and expert practice.
•Exploration of the integration and application to practice of advanced health assessment skills, diagnostic skills, complex decision making, therapeutic management, and speciality specific knowledge and skills acquired during the MSc Advanced Clinical Practice programme.
•Role transition and professional identity in advanced practice, including professional and service user perspectives on advanced practice and its meaning and place within current and future healthcare delivery, and the implications of working at the interface between your own profession and medicine in situations of increasing complexity and uncertainty.
•Legal and ethical issues underpinning advanced/autonomous practice, including the management of risk and uncertainty.
•Leadership and management of change within advanced practice, including exploration of leadership of both self and others.
•Exploration of the educator role of the advanced practitioner, focusing on the education of self, peers and recipients of care, including the role of the Advanced Practitioner within health promotion and illness prevention.
•The application of evidenced based practice within the advanced practitioner role, including the role of the advanced practitioner in service evaluation and clinical audit.
•The role of the Advanced Practitioner in the context of the multi-disciplinary/multi agency team.
•UK and international health and social care policy in relation to advanced practice.