Advanced Practitioner (AP)
What you need to know about this role.
What is an Advanced Practice?
Advanced Practitioners (APs) are healthcare professionals from a range of backgrounds including, but not limited to, nurses, pharmacists, paramedics and occupational therapists. They are educated to Master’s level and have developed skills and knowledge to allow them to take on expanded roles. AP is a defined level of practice designed to transform and modernise pathways of care, enabling the sharing of skills across traditional professional boundaries. APs are deployed across all healthcare settings and work at a level that pulls together the four pillars of Advanced Practice: Clinical Practice, Leadership & Management, Education and Research
An AP is very much part of a multi-professional team and can support patients, their families and carers with a broad range of clinical conditions and social circumstances. APs can review and manage both acute and chronic presentations, show-casing a portfolio of skills relevant to differentiated and undifferentiated care. This can involve physical assessments, prescribing medications (including medication reviews), requesting further investigations and interpreting their results, referring to specialist teams, advance care planning and working with the wider health team to address local population health needs. The AP role also incorporates a research focus which can involve clinical audits, review of QOF targets, service improvement projects, evaluation of clinical guidelines and promote evidence-based practice.
- Manage episodes of patient care
- Enhance clinical skill mix
- Improve patient access and experience
- Ease pressure on GP workload
- Improve retention and support a sustainable business model
- Develop leadership capability in your organisation
- Supervision of other clinical roles
- Undertake quality improvement initiatives
- Support and contribute to a culture of learning
If you would like to know more about the role of an ACP in primary care, please contact the advanced practice lead for primary care, Ewan Armitage: ewan.armitage@nhs.net
Held monthly for 1 hour via Teams. The purpose of these meetings is to develop a community of practice for first contact practitioners and advanced clinical practitioners (including training grades) in primary care in Cheshire & Merseyside. It’s an opportunity to share any learning and identify CPD opportunities which may be of interest. Attendees are invited to present case studies or simply raise any work-place issue relevant to their clinical practice. Guest speakers are invited to present on a specific topic and the group is also used to disseminate information relevant to first contact and advanced clinical practice in primary care in the region.
If you would like to find out more about this group, please contact Ewan Armitage (Advanced Practice lead, primary care, Cheshire & Merseyside): ewan.armitage@nhs.net
- 14/10/25, 13:00 – 14:30: Dr Paresh Parikh (GP with special interest in dermatology & a medical advisor to NHSE): common derm presentations in primary care: Link Here.
- 20/11/25, 13:00 – 14:00: Dr David Skinner (GP partner & clinical educator): lower GI presentations and the referral process to secondary care: Link Here.
- 11/12/25, 12:30 – 14:00: Paul Rishton (clinical educator & cardiac/renal nurse, Boehringer): 1st of a 2-part session on CKD Impact, screening & management: Link Here.
- 20/01/25, 12:30 – 14:00: Paul Rishton, 2nd Session on CKD. Link between cardio-renal metabolic disease & type 2 diabetes, pharmacological treatment options and guidance. Link Here.
This section will detail specific continuing professional development opportunities for advanced clinical practitioners. For other funding requests and general queries, please access the CPD Nurse & AHP section of the website https://cmthub.co.uk/cpd/
National Institute of Health Research (NIHR)
Vision
The UK is a global leader in the delivery of high quality, commercial and non commercial research that is inclusive, accessible and improves health and care.
Mission
Enabling the health and care system to attract, optimise and deliver research across England. We do this as part of the NIHR’s overall mission to improve the health and wealth of the nation through research.
Research Delivery Network (RDN) purpose
RDN is part of the overall NIHR structure and is one of 12 RDNs that cover the whole of the England geography. It supports the successful delivery of high-quality research in health and social care settings. It endeavours to increase capacity and capability of the research delivery infrastructure at sites whether those staff sit in hospitals, GP practices, community settings, hospices, community services. Where staff and people sit and there is a research question that impacts upon health in its broadest sense, research could take place.
This means research can:
- Reach more people
- Address changing population needs
- Support the successful delivery of high-quality research
- Increase capacity and capability of the research delivery infrastructure for the future ensuring sustainability
As a health professional you can be involved in research whether that be supporting NIHR Portfolio research studies that is already designed and could open locally to you OR whether you are keen to become a researcher of the future, all opportunities are an option. We are always happy to have discussions locally around how we can provide manpower or funding to support research delivery locally.
Please see links to NIHR portfolio studies for Primary Care here.
Please drop us a line, your local Northwest RDN which covers Cheshire and Mersey, Lancs and South Cumbria and Greater Manchester at our single point of contact nw.rrdn@nihr.ac.uk
NHSE Faculty for Advancing Practice across the North West have opened a late application process to support the educational training funding for MSc Advanced Clinical Practice Autumn 2026 and Spring 2027 and cohorts.
The application window is scheduled to remain open until close of play on Friday 27th February and the outcome of the process will be sent to organisations in April 2026.
If an employing organisation is considering making an application for funding, please contact the advanced practice lead for primary care, Ewan Armitage, and he will be happy to explain the application process and key things to consider when submitting an application: ewan.armitage@nhs.net
Videos
View the videos below to find out more about how we can support you in all things Advanced Clinical Practitioner (ACP)
Primary Care
Click the links below to find out more about Primary Care Roles in the NHS…
Whether you’re already working across the region and you’re looking for local training and education opportunities or if you’re thinking about joining our local workforce, then we hope our pages will help you to find out more about what a great place this is to work.
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