Nurse practitioner succession planning: forward thinking or just an after-thought?

This paper examines the concept of backfill and succession planning for an elite speciality nursing group, nurse practitioners. Nurse practitioners work in many public, private, inpatient and outpatient settings across the country. This discussion is relevant to all practicing nurse practitioners, but especially those with their own specific patient group. A nurse practitioner is an elite nursing specialist with specific speciality skills. While present, nurse practitioners can be most effective at holistically managing their patient group. However, if an endorsed nurse practitioner is no longer present, for a short or long interval, their specific skills and abilities cannot be easily substituted or replaced in the short term. This potential compromise in patient care can be detrimental to the developing reputation of the role of the nurse practitioner. In order to address the shortage of specifically skilled nurse practitioners across the country in all specialties, there is a need to forward plan and consider contingencies for succession in the event of short- or long-term absences from the clinical environment. Succession planning is the key to patient safety and the successful implementation of the role of the nurse practitioner. What is known about the topic? While succession planning itself is not a new concept, nurse practitioner role development for the most part has been about advancing innovative nurse-led models of care, as opposed to planning for future needs. What does the paper add? This paper aims to reignite the role development discussion to highlight the need for better alignment of succession planning with the establishment of nurse practitioner roles. What are the implications for the practitioner? Better alignment of succession planning and role development will ensure continuity of nurse practitioner models of care well beyond our pioneering nurse practitioners’ working life.