Top job for Huddersfield’s Advanced Nurse Practitioner
Dr Melanie Rogers (front centre) with the Hong Kong organising committee
Thu, 27 Oct 2016 12:12:00 BST
Dr Melanie Rogers is the first expert from the UK to lead the Nurse Practitioner/Advanced Practice Nurse Network of the International Council of Nurses
► Dr Melanie Rogers is pictured at the conference (second right).
Advanced Nurse Practitioners – whose advanced qualifications and specialist skills and knowledge equip them for clinical roles previously restricted to doctors – are becoming increasingly important to healthcare globally. Now, a University of Huddersfield lecturer has become the first UK expert in the field to take over as chair of a large international network dedicated to its development.
Dr Melanie Rogers has already presided over a conference in Hong Kong that drew more than 900 delegates from 26 countries. Her four-year term as chair of the Nurse Practitioner/Advanced Practice Nurse Network (NP/APN) of the International Council of Nurses will also take in a 2018 conference in Rotterdam that aims to draw an even bigger multi-national attendance.
“The NP/APN is the largest international network in the world,” said Dr Rogers. “It’s a very well established group that has connections in most countries where advanced practice is developing and it offers support to countries who are looking to develop the role in terms of education, policy, practice and research. But it also takes an active role in all those countries where the role is already well developed.”
Dr Rogers – a Senior Lecturer and Advanced Nurse Practitioner who holds the title Queen’s Nurse – has been an active member of the NP/APN for the past eight years and she chaired one of its sub-groups before being elected chair of the entire network. The role involves monthly online conferences with core steering group members from countries that include Zimbabwe, Finland, Canada, Ireland, USA, Germany and Hong Kong. The group also meets annually in person.
At the Hong Kong conference that drew a record attendance, Dr Rogers welcomed the 900 plus delegates and also delivered two papers. One dealt with job satisfaction for nurse practitioners in developed and developing countries – the first study of its type.
She also spoke about the role of spirituality in advanced practice. This is one of Dr Rogers’s key areas at the University of Huddersfield, where she is Chair of a Spirituality Special Interest Group, based in the School of Human and Heath Sciences.
The NP/APN is under the umbrella of the International Council of Nurses, which holds annual conferences that draw upwards of 20,000 delegates. In her capacity as a network chair, Dr Rogers will attend the 2017 ICN gathering in Barcelona.
An updated international definition for the role of nurse practitioner is one of the issues currently under discussion, said Dr Rogers. Meanwhile, the ICN describes a Nurse Practitioner/Advanced Practice Nurse as “a registered nurse who has acquired the expert knowledge base, complex decision-making skills and clinical competencies for expanded practice, the characteristics of which are shaped by the context and/or country in which she or he is credentialed to practice. A master's degree is recommended for entry level.”
Dr Rogers is the course leader for the successful MSc Health Studies Advanced Nurse Practitioner and Advanced Clinical Practitioner courses which has been running at the University of Huddersfield for nearly 18 years. This course has trained around 300 practitioners, the majority of whom remain in the Yorkshire region offering autonomous patient care in primary and secondary care settings.
