The Role of the Assistant Practitioner

2314 Words10 Pages
This essay will focus on the role of the Assistant Practitioner and its introduction and establishment into the NHS career pathway. It will explain how the role of the nurse altered, which in turn led to the position of the Assistant Practitioner being created, the relevant changes that happened in the NHS at that time, where the role of an Assistant Practitioner slots into the existing hierarchy of nursing care and how its planned expansion will possibly impact on medical establishments in the United Kingdom. It will also cover other aspects such as training and potential regulation and where other than a hospital an Assistant Practitioner might come to be employed. The principles of accountability will also be outlined.

Various factors have led to the creation of this new position of Assistant Practitioner, one of the main ones being a general shake-up in the world of nursing that came as a result of Project 2000, which came into being in 1986. A major part of Project 2000 was that student nurses came out of their training on the hospital wards and were now put into classroom environments, with nursing being studied as a university degree, thus removing a huge workforce from hands-on nursing care (Lord.2002). According to Elcock (2006), when these new student nurses did their hospital placements they were now considered as supernumerary, which led to a huge shortfall in the numbers of nurses actually nursing in the wards. This also coincided with a huge number of nurses reaching retirement age and this too had major impact in the number of nurses available to perform patient care. At the time of Project 2000 being drawn up there was a pronounced shortfall in the nursing vacancies available and the number of applicants wanting to fill them (Dremman, 2012).

Another possible reason for the dramatic shortage of nursing staff performing a traditional role
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