A streamlined proposal for a registrar-style NP education programme has been released by the Nurse Practitioner Advisory Committee.
Helen Snell, NPAC chair, said it received 32 submissions on the draft proposal and the revised proposal was known as the Nurse Practitioner Education and Clinical Training Programme. It outlines a two year clinically-based programme focused on advanced clinical practice and prescribing, offering at least four hours a week formal clinical teaching, delivered in partnership by healthcare employers and tertiary education providers.
The proposal was prompted by concerns that the clinical practice preparation needed to seek NP status was not well defined or supported. Snell said NPAC believed that part of the reason for relatively low numbers of NPs was the absence of a formal training programme, so acquiring the necessary clinical skills, leadership and scholarship abilities was left up to the nurses’ own drive and their employer goodwill. To become a trainee under the proposal, a nurse must be in a suitable job, have completed their postgraduate study, have demonstrated their competency at an advanced level, and have a mentor.
Snell said NPAC had been talking to the Health Workforce New Zealand regional training hubs about how the programme might fit into the hub’s programme and how it might be funded. Brenda Wraight, director of HWNZ, said as yet she was unaware of the proposal but they would certainly be interested in a more structured programme, as other disciplines had, rather than loose mentoring.
Snell said the programme proposal was also being used to inform the Nursing Council’s review of postgraduate education.
