The AAPE UK was previously known as the Association of Advanced Nursing Practice Educators UK (AANPE UK). In 2015 the membership elected to change the title to AAPE UK to reflect the evolving educative provision for advanced practice across interprofessional groups. We believe that future commissioning of advanced practice will not differentiate between original profession.
The origins of the AAPE UK lie in the US National Organization of Nurse Practitioner Faculties (NONPF). NONPF was established in 1980 following the introduction of nurse practitioners to clinical practice in the USA in the mid-1960s. It arose as a direct result of the wish of American universities to ensure that there was a forum for dialogue on nurse practitioner education issues across the USA. NONPF’s mission was (is) the provision of leadership in promoting quality nurse practitioner education at a national and international level. Its mission would, by the early 1990s, provide a foundation to the very early development of a UK-wide network of nurse practitioner educators. Indeed, it was in the 1990s that the first education collaborations arose as a result of the implementation and franchise of the RCN ‘Nurse Practitioner’ Diploma. That franchise brought together a small group of UK university representatives, and they began to meet on a regular basis, and shared their educational experiences and expertise.
As the 1990s progressed, and as programmes of nurse practitioner and advanced clinical practice education proliferated, the number of universities involved in this early network slowly grew. In October 2000, the fledgling educational network called a general meeting of UK university representatives (all of whom were providing some form of nurse practitioner education) at the RCN in London. The attendees of that meeting concluded that a formal education forum was needed in the UK to facilitate the sharing of good practice and standard setting for nurse practitioner education in the UK.
The inaugural meeting of UK NONPF took place in November 2001, a decade after the first RCN Nurse Practitioner Diploma course had began. Membership of the UK NONPF slowly increased during 2002 and 2003, and by late 2003 a series of key meetings led to the establishment of a formal network link with the national RCN Nurse Practitioner Association. In 2005, the UK NONPF changed its name to the Association of Advanced Nursing Practice Educators (AANPE) and was formally re-launched as a new independent association.
By 2007, the AANPE had forged a collaboration of universities that was unprecedented in scale and nature in the UK, with formal membership from 40 or more UK universities, and many academics and other senior health professionals in its membership. The NMC had publicly acknowledged the influence of the AANPE.
In 2015 at its annual conference the association renamed itself as the Association of Advanced Practice Educators (AAPE UK). This reflected to growth and maturity of Advanced Practice in a broad multi-professional context in the UK. In the past decade, AAPE UK has participated in professional, regional and country-specific advanced practice discussions, consultations and policy development across the UK.
From its beginnings in the early 1990s to present day, the AAPE UK has evolved to become a national, influential and powerful voice in the ever changing world of advanced practice.
The AAPE UK is an independent, non-governmental, not-for-profit association. The mission of the AAPE UK is to coordinate and represent a collaborative network of Higher Education Institutions (HEIs), Academics and Professionals across the United Kingdom (UK) who have a common interest in the education, development and advancement of advanced practitioners.
