Advancing the clinical perspective: a practice development project to develop the nurse practitioner role in an acute hospital trust.

Aims: The aims of this project were to investigate awareness and foster understanding of the concept of the nurse practitioner and to facilitate and support the development of nurse practitioner roles within an acute hospital trust.

Background: A limited understanding of and minimal support for the development of the nurse practitioner (NP) role were identified within an acute hospital trust in the south of England. This was the impetus for pursuing the project outlined in this paper.

Piloting a nurse-led gynaecology preoperative-assessment clinic.

This article outlines a pilot project to develop and evaluate a nurse-led gynaecology preoperative-assessment clinic at an acute hospital trust. The main aim of the clinic was to offer an effective preoperative-assessment service that provided high quality individualised and sensitive patient care. Further aims were that the clinic could be a template for other preoperative-assessment clinics, an educational resource for staff, a tool for clinical nursing career progression and a service to help ease junior doctors' workloads.