Aligning Frameworks
The Career Framework for Health (Skills for Health, 2006) and Scottish Government guidance on the Career Framework (SGHD, 2009) provide an opportunity to establish and sustain consistent role benchmarks for professional practice. Crucially, these documents propose that the 'level' of practice could be articulated across professional groups to provide consistent expectations of competence.
This is not to say that the professional expertise of each group is 'genericised'. Rather, it's saying that core elements, such as 'decision-making', 'patient assessment' and 'dealing with complexity', can be identified at these benchmarked levels and that it is these (rather than the discrete professional skill set) that characterise the levels of practice.
As health care delivery patterns shift to respond to patient and client needs, workforce demands (and potential career opportunities) will shift towards an interprofessional focus, with roles based on recognised levels of capability and competence rather than professional background.
This makes the need for a coherent career development framework even more essential. We need a focus on 'benchmarked' roles at clearly defined levels of competence that can translate across professional boundaries.
The Career Framework for Health can be used in conjunction with other frameworks such as the Scottish Credit and Qualifications Framework demonstrating educational levels and other frameworks produced by professional bodies that aim to define the level of advanced practice.
The following frameworks help to support benchmarking of roles:
Department of Health 2010 Advanced Level Nursing: A Position Statement
