Understanding advanced nursing practice.

Articles published in Nursing Times in 2012 presented the role of the advanced nurse practitioner as an extension into the territory of junior doctors in response to pressures in healthcare resources. This article traces the history of advanced practice and suggests that a more appropriate model, post Francis report, should focus on fundamental skills and core nursing values. Rather than attempting to plug a gap created by a shortage of doctors by developing medical skills, nurses should value and promote advanced nursing practice, which is driven by patients' needs for the care that doctors are unable and unskilled to provide.