Levels of Practice

Core - Demonstrates systematic and ethical care delivery underpinned by knowledge, judgement, and skills derived from biological, physical, behavioral, social and nursing and/or midwifery sciences.

Core practice is evidenced through demonstration of the five core competencies. Core competencies must be achieved by all nurses and midwives before the end of their orientation period (usually 90 days).

Specialist - Demonstrates a wide range of responsibility, accountability, autonomy, knowledge and refined skills I the management of specialist care/ workloads.

Specialist practice is evidenced through the demonstration of specialist competencies by nurses or midwives within a clinical specialty (e.g. critical care, pediatrics, NICU etc.) Specialist competencies are aligned to a specialty and apply to nurses or midwives working within that specialty across HMC. Some elements of complex specialty practice (e.g. ECMO, therapeutic cooling, stoma site marking, compression bandaging) will not apply to every nurse or midwife within the specialty. Complex and expert elements of practice must be marked as N/A on the competence assessment template if they do not apply to a nurse or midwife (see page 13, Specialist Competencies template).

Advanced - Demonstrates advanced knowledge, complex clinical, managerial and leadership decision-making and the ability to integrate research, education, clinical management, policy and service planning skills.

Advanced practice is evidenced through demonstration of advanced competencies, by expert nurses and midwives who are highly specialized and have completed advanced preparation relevant to their clinical specialty. Advanced competencies relate to specialty care, leadership, decision-making and the ability to integrate research, management, policy and service planning.