NCNZ has decided to broaden the scope of practice for NPs remove the requirement restricting nurse practitioners to a specific area of practice.
The Council is now consulting on:
- Draft education programme standards that would allow greater consistency between programmes preparing nurse practitioners and give the Council confidence to register nurse practitioner candidates based on assessments of clinical competence within the programmes.
- Ways of ensuring a consistent standard of candidate assessment between programmes e.g. external moderation, involvement of clinical experts.
- Whether nurse practitioner candidates should continue to submit a portfolio to Council to demonstrate clinical competence when applying for registration.
- New competencies for nurse practitioners that are more integrated and concise and reflect the new scope statement. The draft competencies have been refocused on advanced clinical skills and leadership and prescribing has been integrated within the competencies.
- Requiring a year of supervision to support the development of newly registered nurse practitioners.
Information about the decision, and the second consultation document can be found here:
Information and second consultation document
Feedback Due: Please send feedback to jillc@nzno.org.nz by 4 December 2015