LICENSED AND UNLICENSED NURSES

Licensed and unlicensed nurse practitioners

Licensed and unlicensed nurse practitioners

Introduction

Nurse practitioners (NPs) are nurses who have professional degrees in the field of nursing. One of the main functions of nurse practitioners is the promotion of patient's health wellness through different education programs. The role of nurses has extended to areas like: mental and physical health, patients health records, performing different physical tests and examinations, taking notes of laboratory tests and their results. Nurse practitioners (NPs) generally work in vast domains like clinics, hospitals, and nursing home facilities. In 2009, there were about 159,000 nurse practitioners in the UK (Webb, 2002, 747).

Differences between unlicensed and license nurse practitioner in the United Kingdom

Licensed Nurse Practitioners (LNP)

One of the most important clinical roles of licensed nurse practitioners (LNP) relay to their professional effectiveness and sovereignty in practice. These LNP can also prescribe medications, treat, order different diagnostic testing, and can also refer number of patients to other experts in the field of health care. Licensed nurse practitioners (LNP) observe and implement different evidence-based practices and they also bring the agenda of prevention and health education into their profession. In the UK, nurses have a proper license for carrying out their practice. In the UK, most of these licenses are provided by a state's board of nursing such as The Nursing and Midwifery Council. Through this license, nurse practitioners are distinguished from a physician, who in general practices under direct supervision of physicians.

Unlicensed Nurse Practitioners (UNP)

Unlicensed Nurse Practitioners or in other words, Unlicensed Assistive Personnel (UAP) is used to describe paraprofessionals who are responsible for assisting people with mental and physical disabilities. Unlicensed nurse practitioners mostly provide care for patients in clinics, nursing facilities, at private homes and in hospitals. In short, unlicensed nurse practitioners in UK do not hold license or related professional requirements for practicing their profession (Radsma, 2004, 449).

Understanding of the role of the unlicensed and licensed nurse practitioner

Nurse practitioners generally specialize in their field of interest through a master's degree. The education in this field is designed to make students eligible and competent for licensing as a nurse practitioner in areas like psychology, healthcare, or children health. The role of licensed and unlicensed nurse practitioner is different. For licensed nurse practitioner, certification is usually gained after the completion of requisite educational program. These entities are generally associated with a specific practice, such as midwifery. In most of the areas in UK, about 410 hours of practice is required. Managed care has elevated concerns about certain organizational aspects of health care as potential barriers.

These include financial arrangements with participating physicians which may create incentives for providing less care, organizational policies that require prior authorization or restrict referral to some types of services, and limited recourse for patients to appeal denials of care. There is little empirical data about the prevalence of such policies or their impact on patient access to care. Some of the conceptual, measurement, and data developments needed to address the specific effects of managed ...