Advancing practice by developing a primary care nursing programme

The discussion of advanced practice in nursing is ongoing, yet the need for practice to advance and develop across the health economy is called for in much of the current literature and government policy. This article considers an educational intervention that set out to advance primary care nursing. The programme aimed to facilitated nurses to understand clients, families and carers in the community setting, to offer a high standard of care, to support specialist practitioner team leaders to work across community nursing disciplines and to make their own career development choices. Advancing practice in this novel primary care nursing programme required change management, collaboration, partnership, leadership and involvement of the staff nurses themselves.