Advanced practice toolkit

Advanced practice represents a level of practice rather than being related to a specific area of clinical practice, specialty, or profession. Advanced practitioners are experienced registered health professionals who have postgraduate education at Masters level in advanced practice that builds on their existing professional knowledge and shares knowledge across professions.

Advanced practice is a level of practice that: 

• Is characterised by a high degree of autonomy in practice and the ability to make high level decisions independently.
• Involves the synthesis and interpretation of information including that which is incomplete or ambiguous.  
• Is manifested in the ability to analyse complex problems in a range of contexts and settings.
• Is built on the four pillars of practice and leads to the demonstration of core and area-specific capabilities relevant to scope of practice and role. 

Advanced practitioners can assess, diagnose and treat patients/clients, and have the authority to refer, admit, order investigations and discharge within defined clinical areas.   

The diagram below illustrates the level of increasing complexity and responsibility across the career framework and the associated educational requirements (CNOD Paper 5).