The Centre for Advancing Practice of NHS England Workforce, Training and Education hosted its annual conference on 13 and 14 November 2024, as part of the international Advanced Practice Week. Held in the UK annually since 2017, the week promotes and recognises the skilful, compassionate and pioneering work that advanced practitioners bring to health and care provision, celebrating and showcasing their activities and opinions. The Advanced Practice Week is aligned with the global advanced practice community to enable international networking, sharing and informed discourse. It acts as a stimulus to promote the excellent work that advanced practitioners are doing with patients, carers and families to a wide range of key stakeholders.
The theme of this year's conference was optimising impact; it focused on the impact of advancing practice innovations for improving the care of people engaging with health and care services. The conference featured inspiring keynote addresses from leaders in the field of advancing practice, practical guidance from colleagues and case studies showcasing successful implementation of advanced practice. Delegates had the opportunity to engage in thought-provoking discussions and explore the latest developments in healthcare delivery in the context of advancing practice developments. Overall, the event fostered collaboration and innovation, empowering healthcare professionals, educators and employers to drive positive change for further embedding advancing practice across health and care settings. Over 3000 delegates registered for the conference from a wide range of multi-professional registrant backgrounds and health and care settings.
The conference was presented in a magazine-style format using a combination of live broadcasts from the conference's studio in central Birmingham interspersed with a mix of online live and pre-recorded sessions. Some of the highlights from day 1 of the conference explored: optimising the impact of governance of multi-professional advanced practice, which is especially important to consider in the future context of additional regulation of advanced practice for registered nurses and registered midwives; recognising the value of allied health advanced practitioners, exploring the unique skills and expertise that allied health advanced practitioners bring to clinical settings, demonstrating their impact on patient outcomes, multidisciplinary teamwork, and healthcare efficiency; the integration of advanced practice in a comprehensive stroke centre, which showcased the impact of advanced and consultant level practitioners in hyper-acute and rehabilitation settings, discussing their autonomy, patient management, research involvement and collaboration across the stroke care continuum; and thinking about how we can work together to optimise the impact of advanced practice leadership to collaboratively augment the impact of advanced practice across systems and organisations.
Later in the first day of the conference, also of interest was a session on developments for multi-professional consultant practice, with interesting questions posed by delegates regarding doctoral/level 8 attainment in consultant level practice. In the final session of day 1, delegates also had the opportunity to ask questions about a wide range of topics related to advanced and consultant level practice. Panellists shared their experiences and insights on key initiatives, resources and strategies that support the development of advancing practice innovations across health and care settings.
A key feature was the session presented by colleagues from the recently established Academy of Advanced Practice Research UK, discussing the development of the academy across the country and looking at research priorities for advancing practice. The session had a very high level of engagement with over 600 delegates voting on and ranking their top research priority for advanced practice from the following proposed options:
The conference delegates gave over 300 suggestions for advanced practice research priorities, much to the delight of the teams from the centre and the academy. The centre team announced the upcoming publication of the refreshed version of the multiprofessional framework for advanced practice in England, and the refreshed guidance on workplace supervision for advanced practice, planned for release in early 2025. The centre team updated colleagues on recent collaborative work with royal colleges and professional bodies for developing good practice guidance to enable equitable access to clinical imaging requesting for registered healthcare professionals working in advancing practice roles. Sessions highlighting the impact of advanced practice from a patient's perspective were integrated throughout the conference.
Day 2 of the conference started with an interactive session exploring innovative approaches to address the challenges facing healthcare at present and into the future. The session provided valuable insights that delegates could apply in their practice settings, aiming to inspire and empower advanced practitioners and their teams to embrace change and drive further improvements in patient care. A panel-based discussion session focused on the effectiveness and impact of supervision in advanced practice. This session brought together a diverse group of colleagues who shared their insights and experiences on the key role of effective supervision in the development and success of advanced practitioners, providing valuable perspectives and fostering meaningful dialogue about improving supervision to maximise efficacy and impact for patient care.
The themes of the NHS Long Term Workforce Plan are ‘train, retain and reform’ and one of the sessions focused on the need to train, retain and reform the clinical workforce to meet the plan's goals. The session introduced a toolkit aimed at empowering clinical decision makers and supporting multi-professional workforce planning. This toolkit is designed to map workforce needs, address biases and facilitate planning over extended time horizons, with a focus on stakeholder engagement and skill optimisation.
The crucial role of Yellow Card reporting in tracking adverse drug reactions and ensuring medicines safety was highlighted in a session which provided practical guidance on using the Yellow Card application. It emphasised the shared responsibility of healthcare professionals, patients and carers in improving drug safety. The session enabled valuable insights into the impact of Yellow Card reporting on patient safety and regulatory actions, and encouraged all healthcare professionals to engage in the reporting processes when encountering adverse drug reactions.
The conference's closing session reflected on the impactful insights, inspiring innovations and collaborative achievements shared over its 2 days of proceedings. This final gathering celebrated the progress made in advancing practice and recapped key highlights and outlined actionable next steps to sustain and grow the shared vision of advancing practice innovations. Delegates were encouraged to connect, share takeaways and build lasting collaborations to continue shaping the future of advancing practice together for improving patients' experiences and care outcomes. After the close of the conference, there were several associated webinars and roundtable discussions hosted by royal colleges and professional bodies where they discussed enhanced practice and shared orthoptic, paramedic and physiotherapist conversations and perspectives around advanced practice.
The Centre for Advancing Practice received lots of positive feedback on both the conference content and format. The centre is grateful to all the presenters of sessions, conference delegates and the behind-the-scenes team for all their valuable contributions and interactions for ensuring a successful and impactful conference.