Advanced Nursing Practice in New Zealand: 1998 

Abstract
In the last decade, change in the health sector has often seemed to deny and thwart the professionalism and expertise of nurses.  However, in the first half of 1998, a number of positive initiatives have come to fruition, which support the development of clinical and educational structures for advanced practice nursing in New Zealand.  Within one month of each other the Nursing Council published its framework for post-registration nursing education, and the Nurse Executives of New Zealand published a proposal for the development of advanced practice roles:  clinical nurse specialist and nurse practitioner.  This article will explore these initiatives, and will examine the proposed clinical nurse specialist and nurse practitioner roles in light of experience in the United States in developing advanced or expanded nursing practice. 

Keywords
advanced nursing practice, clinical nurse specialist, nurse practitioner

Introduction
History is the archive, the drawing of what we are and what we are ceasing to be, whilst the current is the sketch of what we are becoming (Deleuze, in Nelson, 1997, p.229) The array of policy documents, proposals, Government decisions and undertakings released during 1998 suggests that currently there is a new wave of nursing professionalism and practice which is being sketched our in New Zealand.  The development of advanced and extended nursing practice is gaining impetus.