Professional nurse advocate: nursing/healthcare providers checklist

The professional nurse advocate (PNA) checklist forms part of the NHS England and NHS Improvement national PNA implementation guidance. It summaries the necessary activities to embed PNAs in an organisation.

  • Organisation’s chief nurse to identify a senior registered nurse lead for PNAs to oversee allocation, implementation and oversight of PNAs in practice.
  • Identify the number of PNAs the service needs to implement the A-EQUIP model (based on a 1:20 ratio).
  • Select and train nurses to fill the required number of PNA roles.
  • Ensure arrangements are in place for all nurses within every service to have access to a PNA.
  • Ensure that PNAs have allocated time to deploy their role and that nurses are released to meet their PNA as required
  • Establish supervision arrangements for PNAs.
  • Ensure there are robust governance and assurance measures in place to monitor the implementation and contribution of the PNA role.
  • Identify, collate, analyse and interpret quantitative and qualitative data to inform reports about the process for, and impact and outcome of, the PNA role.