Multi-Professional Advanced Capabilities Framework for Lower Limb Viability

Health Education England commissioned this Lower Limb Advanced Clinical Practice Capabilities Framework to support development and planning of the workforce, to inform the design of curricula and the delivery of education and training programmes.

Many thousands of patients receive healthcare for an underlying illness or condition that puts their legs and feet at increased risk of injury and disability. Examples of these conditions include poor circulation leading to fragile skin that injures easily and takes a long time to heal and lack of feeling in the feet or lower legs which may mean that injuries go un-noticed and lead to ulceration. People with diabetes, rheumatoid arthritis, cerebral palsy, peripheral arterial disease and peripheral nerve damage (neuropathy) can be prone to these kinds of conditions.

This Multi-professional framework focuses on the capabilities of advanced practitioners working with individuals with high risk and chronic wounds, difficult healing and who are at risk of losing a foot or lower limb and dying early as a result of their underlying condition(s). It is relevant to multi-disciplinary practice and is multi-professional rather than being applicable to one area of practice only.

A steering group comprising key stakeholder organisations (including the College of Podiatry and practitioners from across the UK) led the development process.

The framework underpins the high-risk lower limb component of the development of the podiatry advanced role in primary care and the roadmap to first contact practice. Podiatry roles in primary care should also map to the musculoskeletal road map specific to the lower limb.

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the framework

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