NMC publish new post-registration standards for specialist community public health nursing (SCPHN), and specialist community nursing qualifications (SPQ).

On its website, the Nursing & Midwifery Council (NMC) wrote:

Our new standards set out the necessary knowledge and skills nurses and midwives need to provide specialist care and support for people, and the wider community. They enshrine what professionals will need to know and be able to do to provide the highest standard of modern specialist community, and public health nursing practice, in a health and care landscape that is constantly evolving.

Specialist community, and public health nursing is complex and diverse. In order to be effective, professionals need to work with a high degree of autonomy to provide timely support and care for people with wide-ranging needs. Our standards will give these professionals the skills to develop their careers to become the clinical experts of today, and the leaders of the future.

An additional SPQ for community nursing in health and social care with no field of practice specified will ensure that community nurses working in any role or setting who require additional levels of knowledge and skill to reach their maximum potential will have access to a regulated qualification.

And with a qualification that everyone can see on our register, it will also give people confidence that they’re being cared for by an expert practitioner who is able to provide the safe, effective and kind care they have the right to expect.