Blurring the Boundaries: A Study of Advanced Nursing Practice in the United Kingdom (1990-2010)

Advanced nursing practice has been of tremendous value to British healthcare.

The government, NHS managers and patients alike have placed high expectations on Advanced Nurse Practitioners (ANPs), and researchers have concluded that ANPs have risen to the challenge.

However, it is ironic that while ANPs have been deployed across varying sectors of British healthcare, neither the government nor the NMC - nursing's regulatory body - has placed legal parameters around the role's boundary of practice. There is no doubt that professional boundaries in healthcare have shifted.

Before the 1990s, nurses had been innovatively expanding their practice boundaries in response to service needs. Consequently, the ANP role evolved under changing healthcare needs. It could be interpreted that British medical history does not understand advanced practice.

Therefore this study will draw on the example of the USA and interpret such evidence to be applicable to the British context.

Nursing historiography currently lacks any historical analysis of the implementation of Advanced Nurse Practitioners, their role and advance practice's evolution.

This thesis will correct this oversight and be the first to write a holistic historical analysis of advanced practice's scope of practice.