LAUSR

Advancing staff capability is important for optimal care delivery. The attribute of lifelong learning ideally serves to ensure the continuing advancement of staff to meet increasing demands in the delivery of quality care. Lifelong learning (LLL) involves ‘seeking and appreciating new worlds or ideas to gain a new perspective as well as questioning one's environment, knowledge, skills and interactions’ (Davis et al., 2014, p. 441). The concept is very much entrenched in the understanding of a profession. Continuing education and advancing capability feature within professional directives issued by registration boards across the globe; for example, Registered Nurses are required to undertake mandatory continuing professional development (CPD) equivalent to 35 h per annum, linked to the code, as a condition of re-validation, a requirement when renewing registration with Nursing and Midwifery Council in the United Kingdom (NMC); and 20 h per annum, relevant to their current context of practice, as a condition of renewing professional registration each year with the Nursing and Midwifery Board Australia (NMBA). These requirements are directly linked to enabling nurses' capacity to provide contemporary care and stay abreast of evidence that pertains to practice. In keeping with this ethos, re-envisaging continuing education can assist nurses toward life-long learning. This paper reviews existing approaches to continuing education with respect to their impact on desired practice change. An approach using a framework based on Normalizing Process Theory (NPT) is proposed to address the limitations. The NPT framework that can be readily adopted by educators is explained.