The Nursing and Midwifery Workload and Workforce Planning Project (NMWWPP) has made significant progress in introducing workforce/workload planning tools for nursing and midwifery across the service in Scotland.

Data from these tools are providing, for the first time, robust and standardised measures that support the efficient targeting of nursing resources towards areas of need.

The National Workforce Planning process has also begun to seek current and future 'demand' modelling at local and regional level based upon the Career Framework levels and linked to financial modelling against Agenda for Change pay bands.

It is recognised that much of the progress in 'advanced practice' roles over recent years has been driven by 'gap analysis', in which shifts in availability of one professional group has led to role change among another. While this has generated some professional anxiety, there is no doubt that the emerging models have presented genuine opportunities for role development and service innovation.

Our experience in such work has provided better planning support and a renewed focus upon ensuring good governance around role change. As we've already identified, the development and sustainability of nursing roles at advanced-practice level must be based upon assessment of service need and a planned delivery model (Figure below).

Requirements: how workforce inputs map onto skills, roles and numbers