Advanced Clinical Practitioner and Nurse Consultant Development Programme

St Christopher's CARE

Event overview

  • 29 Apr, 2024
  • 24 months
  • Approximately £5,640 (ACP) £6,400 (NC) for taught modules at St Christopher’s CARE. 4-6 payment instalments available on request
  • All prices include VAT
  • St Christopher's CARE and online

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Useful information

Nurse Healthcare Assistant Paperwork

Course overview

The potential contribution of senior nurses in palliative care has arguably never been greater. There is clear recognition on the part of Government, commissioners and providers of the value of strong clinical leadership to meet emerging demographic, disease specific, regulatory and other challenges. Simultaneously, there is new rhetoric and clarity about the potential role of nurses alongside medical and other colleagues to fulfil such a leadership role.

This unique course will offer sustained opportunity for nurses who aspire to be advanced clinical practitioners (ACPs) or nurse consultants (NCs) to gain the skills and knowledge required within these roles. We welcome nurses from across the NHS, private and voluntary sector.

The programme is divided into two parts. All learners start together for the first half of the programme. Then, those that wish to advance their role beyond advanced nursing practice to that of a consultant remain for the second half of the programme.

For more information about the programme, please contact the Professional Learning Team at education@stchristophers.org.uk

We welcome nurses who fulfil the following criteria:

  • At least three years of experience of working at Band 7 or equivalent in nursing
  • Significant experience of palliative and end of life care delivery
  • Completion (or near completion) of a master’s level programme of learning
  • Completion of advanced physical assessment modules and independent prescribing or intention to complete within the upcoming 18 months
  • A passion for self-development
  • A desire to be a highly effective and authentic leader

Those accepted must be working for an organisation with a structure and systems that can support nurses who are advanced practitioners, or those who aspire to be so.

All employing organisations must be able to confirm that:

  • there is a senior nurse and/or doctor who are willing and able to assess and sign off competencies that they witness in the course of the practice of the aspiring ACP or NC
  • there is agreement to support the nurse’s programme of development for its duration through financial help, time away from clinical responsibilities to study and re-alignment of responsibilities in the course of training to allow experience of quality improvement and similar

Teaching will be provided by a mix of clinicians, leaders in health care, academics and peers. Learners should expect to learn in person and virtually.

This will comprise a total of 33 days of contact days for the ACP in training and 42 contact days for the NC in training distributed across an 18/24 month period respectively. These may be half or full days. A proportion will be in person in CARE as per the table below.

Contact learning daysIn PersonVirtualTotal
Advanced Clinical Practitioner151833
Nurse Consultant202242

For full details of the programme structure, learning modules and assessment, please refer to our prospectus.

Learning will be supported through:

  • lectures, seminars and webinars
  • workshops
  • communities of practice
  • guided reflections
  • clinical observations and placements
  • an online learning platform

As a result of attending the programme, learners can expect to:

  • Appreciate the contemporary context in which palliative and end of life care must be delivered
  • Understand the multi-faceted role of an ACP or NC role within this context
  • Feel confident to provide highly skilled, evidence-based and individualised care/support to people who are dying and those close to them
  • Recognise and respond to opportunities for nurse leadership at individual, team, organisational and system levels
  • Understand the different dimensions of quality in contemporary healthcare
  • Take hold of opportunities to advance the profession of nursing  

Meet your Programme Leaders

The programme will be led by the following directors who will guide you through your course of study and provide ongoing support to help you succeed.

Maaike Vandeweghe

Maaike Vandeweghe

Head of Professional Learning Programmes and CARE Co-Lead, St Christopher’s CARE Maaike graduated from the KATHO (Roeselare, Belgium) in 2002 as a general and mental health nurse. She started her…
Read More Maaike Vandeweghe
Middle aged white woman, smiling to camera with short blond hair

Heather Richardson

Director of Education, Research and End of Life Policy at St Christopher’s Hospice, Honorary Professor in the International Observatory on End of Life Care at Lancaster University and Senior Research…
Read More Heather Richardson
Marie Cooper

Marie Cooper

Senior Nursing Advisor Celebrating Palliative Care Nursing. Marie is a nurse with many years’ experience of clinical leadership with an expertise in practice development across a range of care settings. Having…
Read More Marie Cooper
Amanda Mayo

Amanda Mayo

Care Director Amanda joined St Christopher’s in January 2019. She is the Director responsible for all care related activities in the Hospice. Care related activities include; medicine, community nursing, inpatient…
Read More Amanda Mayo
Joy Ross

Dr Joy Ross

Consultant in Palliative Medicine, St Christopher’s Dr Joy Ross trained at Guy’s and St Thomas’ Medical School. She completed her PhD at Imperial College, London, studying the pharmacogenetics of response…
Read More Dr Joy Ross
Helen King

Helen King

Helen is a Consultant Nurse at St Christopher’s. Helen joined St Christopher’s in 2019 to work on embedding the Age Attuned Palliative Care project – this work continued during the…
Read More Helen King

Prospectus

ACP-Prospectus Prospectus for the Advanced Clinical Practitioner and Nurse Consultant programme (PDF)

More information

Professional Learning , Education

020 8768 4656

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    Why our education programme?

    We have a well-established programme of high quality, cutting-edge, specialist palliative care education, designed for those working in the UK and internationally.

    Why St Christopher’s?

    Education is at the heart of St Christopher’s mission to promote and provide hospice care of the highest standards.

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