Specialist practice: the long road to a set of standards

The UK statutory bodies for nursing have been debating the issue of standards for specialist nursing education for a number of years. Project 2000 recommended, in 1986, that there should be post-registration qualifications, and the United Kingdom Central Council (UKCC) began to develop a framework in 1989 which led to a requirement that all registered nurses follow a basic course of study. The UKCC also began the process of defining specialist nursing and developing educational programme standards for specialist practitioners.