The characteristics, qualities and skills of practice developers

There is a growing interest in practice development as a systematic process for the development of quality patient care. Whilst there is a range of accounts of practice development in the literature, little work has been undertaken to develop an understanding of the systems and processes involved and there is even less on the roles involved in practice development. This paper explores in particular the characteristics, qualities and skills of practice developers, i.e. professionals who have formal responsibility for developing practice in organizations. The paper represents part of a larger study exploring the conceptual basis of the term 'practice development'. Data for this part of the project were collected through literature analysis, seven focus groups involving 60 practice developers and telephone interviews with 25 practising nurses with experience of working with practice developers. The data were analysed using cognitive mapping processes. Four role functions are presented in the paper, as well as qualities and skills needed to operationalize the identified role functions. A clear picture of the skills and qualities required by practice developers emerges from the data.