NHS Golden Jubilee
We end #NursesDay with some pictures of specialist nurses and nurse practitioners from days gone by and more recent, and some information about their roles and experience. They are educated to degree level or above and hold specialist knowledge, skills, competencies and experience. Practising at an advanced level, they often have sole responsibility for a care episode or defined client or group.
There are a wide range of roles that have arisen from various needs – nursing expertise growing and “pushing the boundaries” of existing roles; clinical developments leading to nurses finding new roles with greater autonomy; meeting service needs by enhancing others roles or filling identified gaps.
Evaluation of these roles is difficult due to these variances, but despite this a number of research studies have explored the role and impact of a range of specialist nurses. There is evidence of positive impacts in terms of patient outcomes and of wider indirect impact on systems and processes of care.
Specialist nurses provide leadership and have a positive impact on training and education of other staff. There is further evidence supporting high levels of patient satisfaction with specialist nurses in relation to their direct impact on improvements in symptom control and other aspects of care.
