Advanced Specialist 3-yearly accreditation fee £60
If you have an advanced level of knowledge, experience and skills in occupational health nursing, you could become an Advanced Specialist, and get all the benefits of membership. You could be an academic, independent consultant, researcher or occupational health practitioner.
Check the eligibility criteria below.
What's
If you work across the discipline using a range of knowledge and skills and can demonstrate a real commitment to the profession, this could be the right accreditation level for you. Find out more about the different requirements for your application.
Education
What type and level of qualification you need.
Main requirement
You need to meet the requirements of a Specialist Practitioner with evidence of lifelong learning and professional development.
You should have completed at least 35 hours of CPD a year in the 4 years since graduation.
Work Experience
How much experience you need and how to document it.
Main requirements
You need to have carried out occupational health work for at least 200 days over a period of at least 4 years since graduation. You’ll need to have carried out at least 5 significant occupational health activities or projects since graduation from specialty training.
How to show this in your application
You’ll need to complete a logbook detailing your activities or projects. Your logbook is a key part of your application as it demonstrates to the assessors the occupational health nursing that you have undertaken over your minimum period of work experience. Ideally you should start your logbook as soon as you start working professionally. The following criteria must be met:
- Your logbook must contain between 5 and 8 separate records covering a minimum of:
- 200 days over a minimum of 4 years for a graduate from a Qualifying Course, including an annual Reflective Discussion.
- The entries in the logbook must demonstrate your occupational health expertise and your professional development. Each record should include:
- A brief summary of the activity and personal involvement.
- Details of the work involved. For example, provide a list of reports that you have produced, the names of particular methods, tools and techniques that you used. Include reference to conference proceedings, training delivery or journal articles relating to your logbook entry.
- A description of the outputs from the work and your contribution.
- An indication of your degree of responsibility, level of authority and description of your role in the project, role or activity.
- Reflection on the successful and less successful features of each project or activity.
- Details of how this work demonstrates personal development and relevance to NMC Code.
Evidence
What form your evidence can take and what you need to demonstrate.
Main requirement
You will need at least 1 documented example from each year of your experience as evidence of your competence.
How to show this in your application
You must submit supporting evidence for some of your logbook entries. The minimum number of pieces of evidence is 5 for all applicants.
Note that a multi-authored report can be difficult to assess as evidence, so you must be explicit about your contribution to such a report.
You must submit supporting evidence of your NMC Revalidation CPD and Practice hours.
Simple Pricing
You will pay an annual membership fee of £25. Plus we will invoice you for £60 when you go through accreditation.
Competence
What competence you need and how to link it to your work.
Main requirement
You must have at least an advanced proficiency level (4) in 80% of the competencies in the FOHN Professional Competency Checklist and higher expert proficiency levels (5) in several areas of competency.
How to show this in your application
A checklist of professional competencies has been developed by FOHN as a guide to expected competencies for an occupational health nurse specialist. It can be used in conjunction with a proficiency scale to show progress in breadth and depth of skills and expertise as your career progresses.
The checklist now forms part of the application for Advanced Specialist accreditation to help demonstrate breadth (through the number) and depth (through levels of proficiency) of claimed competencies. If you are planning to upgrade to an Advanced Specialist, it might help you to complete the checklist as soon as you can. This will allow you to see any areas where you are particularly strong which might guide your logbook entries or where you might need to fill any gaps. You will need to give evidence for all proficiency claims at level 5 and any proficiency claims at level 3 and 4 if you have not submitted evidence in the last 3 years. Examples of these could be logbook entries, training courses, reports or a publication.
See the checklist and the guidance (here)
Referees
Who can be a referee and what they need to do?
Main requirement
You’ll need to find 2 referees who are occupational health nurse specialists, and at least 1 of whom works outside your organisation.
How to show this in your application
Your referees must know you well enough to form a robust opinion of your professional work and status. Their reports are an important part of your application and must show strong support for it. This is especially true where you don’t have a mentor’s report to back up your application.
Download our referee report example (here)
Assessment
How your application will be assessed and how long it will take.
How your application is assessed
Two suitably qualified members of the Faculty’s Accreditation Board (FAB) will assess your application. They might ask you to submit additional information if they feel there are any areas that need clarification.
In order for your application to have the best chance of success, make sure it contains enough information for the assessors to answer positively all the following questions:
- Have you completed the necessary minimum time for professional experience?
- Have you demonstrated sufficient breadth and depth of knowledge?
- Do your logbook and reports contain sufficient work to enable the assessment to be done?
- Have you demonstrated sufficient experience?
- Have you demonstrated sufficient professional development?
- Have you demonstrated a systems approach to your work?
- Are your referees reports adequate and supportive?
During the assessment of your application, all assessors follow specific written guidance and complete a checklist to ensure they work consistently, and we maintain a clear record of your application. You should read these too before you apply to understand what the assessors are looking for and how they do their assessment.
Ready to apply?
If you think you’re ready to apply, this is what you’ll need to do.
- Complete the Professional Competency Checklist. Download the checklist (here)
- Create your logbook entries. Download the logbook template (here) and example (here)
- Gather the evidence to back up your logbook entries, competency checklist and NMC Revalidation CPD and practice hours.
- Fill in an application form. Advanced specialist application form (here)
- Email the application form to us at membership@fohn.org.uk , together with the Checklist, logbook and evidence.
- Contact your referee and ask them to prepare and send us their referee reports. Download the report template and example (template – example) to send to them.
- Pay the £20 membership via the online system and £60 application fee when you receive our invoice. (here)