Eight universities have signed up to create a specialist practitioner qualification (SPQ) programme for general practice nursing aligned to the Queen’s Nursing Institute’s (QNI’s) latest standards, it has been revealed.
Speaking at an exclusive Nursing in Practice conference last week, QNI chief executive Dr Crystal Oldman also said a further six universities planned to develop an adult social care nursing SPQ.
In recent months the QNI released nine field-specific standards which universities can develop and map their SPQ courses to, through an endorsement process.
The standards, which cover general practice nursing, adult social care nursing and community mental health nursing among others, aim to build on the Nursing and Midwifery Council’s (NMC’s) own SPQ standards published in 2022 – which are not specific to any field of practice.
Providing an update at Nursing in Practice London last week, Dr Oldman confirmed eight universities had signed up to create an SPQ programme specifically for general practice nursing.
‘That’s really, really exciting and great recognition of your work,’ she added.
In addition, there were six universities that had said they were developing an adult social care nursing SPQ programme.
‘How good is that? Doesn’t that show the recognition of our colleagues, some of you here in the room, who are working in, essentially, a nurse led unit in a care home – absolutely brilliant,’ Dr Oldman added.
Separately, the NMC last week confirmed it was set to create additional regulation for advanced practice nursing.
Following the news, Dr Oldman said the QNI anticipated there will be ‘a simplified process for those who have gone through an SPQ programme that is delivered at an advanced level endorsed by the QNI’.
‘And then we’ll hopefully be able to work out a process that directly – when the regulation is there for advanced practice at the NMC – provides an opportunity to go into that part of the register, potentially recognising the SPQ as an NMC recordable qualification that has been developed to reflect an advanced level of practice,’ she added.
Dr Oldman said she felt the ‘future looks really, really bright in terms of recognition of advanced practice’.
She added: ‘I really do hope that we will see general practice nursing, really rising in numbers for that specialist practice qualification, reflecting an advanced level, and regulated by the NMC.’
All of the QNI field-specific standards are mapped to the four pillars of advanced practice: clinical care, leadership and management, education and assessing learning, and evidence, research and development.
