Specialist Community Health Practitioner

There seems to be a great deal of variety within the role of the Specialist Community Health Practitioner and this is dependant largely on the area that a Nurse is working in. The level of variety has caused some issues with for the NHS with the recent Agenda for Change programme and the banding of jobs and what exactly is involved in the role.

It would seem that most Nurses working as a specialist practitioner do still spend the majority of their working roles carrying out clinical work, there is an increased portion of their time spent filling education, research and management responsibilities also. A large part of the workload involves carrying out patient assessments and referrals as well as giving specialist advice which is to be expected for the role. The roles of Nurse Consultant, Specialist Nurse and Nurse Practitioners all have slightly different primary roles though they are broadly the same job title. A good percentage of these Nurses have undertaken a prescribing course and nearly all of them prescribe on a regular basis.

Most Specialist Practitioners listed some common roles to be:-

Providing education to others including other health professionals.

Assessing the needs of patients in terms of their care.

Referring a patients to another service or professional where this is needed.

Promoting health and healthcare education.

Taking history for patients and developing their care plans over time.

Providing counselling to patients.

Discharging patients from caseload when appropriate.

Undertaking physical examinations and ordering various investigations.

As mentioned above an Specialist Nurse (SN) can work in many different areas such as cancer, diabetes, Parkinson's, HIV/AIDS or heart failure. The involvement of a Specialist Nurse can often prevent a patient having to be readmitted to hospital.