The Council has responded to the Nursing and Midwifery Council’s (NMC) consultation on post-registration standards for community and public health nursing. This includes specialist community public health nursing (SCPHN) and specialist practitioner qualification (SPQ) programmes.
There was a diversity of views amongst Council members about whether these roles should continue to be regulated by the NMC. Simultaneously, other members strongly supported the regulation of these roles and believed that the NMC should provide more detailed field specific standards of proficiency for specialist practitioner qualification (SPQ) programmes.
The Council highlighted that:
- New post-registration standards should be agile and adaptable to the needs of different learners, healthcare settings, employers, and providers.
- Universities should have flexibility to decide how theory and practice are integrated into the curriculum to support learning outcomes.
- Draft programme standards could be improved by including an explicit reference to enabling options for more creative and innovative programme development.