Nurse-led clinic

A nurse-led clinic is any outpatient clinic that is run or managed by registered nurses, usually nurse practitioners or Clinical Nurse Specialists in the UK. Nurse-led clinics have assumed distinct roles over the years, and examples exist within hospital outpatient departments, public health clinics and independent practice environments.

A broad definition of a nurse-led clinic defines these clinics based on what nursing activities are performed at the site. Nurses within a nurse-led clinic assume their own patient case-loads, provide an educative role to patients to promote health, provide psychological support, monitor the patient's condition and perform nursing interventions.Advanced practice registered nurses, usually nurse practitioners, may have expanded roles within these clinics, depending on the scope of practice defined by their state, provincial or territorial government.

The recent growth of nurse-led clinics is considered an emerging area of nursing practice; they were originally discussed in nursing journals in the 1980s, and developed over the 1990s into practice areas that have generated financial, legal and professional challenges over the years. There has been recent growth of nurse-led clinics both within hospitals and in the community. However, that growth has been unequal across different legislative regions. As an example, Canada's only known nurse-led clinics exist in Ontario. Unlike many clinics which exist in the United States, Ontario's clinics have been met with some criticism from the Ontario Medical Association and some family physicians who view nurse-led clinics to be unproven innovations in primary care.

In the UK, advanced nursing practice developed in the 1980s in response to increased health needs and cost, and in keeping with health policy.(11) A later impetus came from the “New deal for junior doctors” which was a government response to the European Community directive to reduce junior doctors' hours of work.(12, 13)

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