<p>Nurse practitioners (NPs) in the United States have been providing care in hospital emergency departments (EDs) for more than 15 years. Educating NPs, specifically for practice in the ED, was proposed and implemented in the mid Seventies. This specificity departed from primary care programmes by emphasising the assessment and management of critically ill or injured persons (Fincke 1975, Hardy 1978, Hayden et al 1982). Although five programmes existed in this time frame, all were subsequently phased out; their focus varied from providing care to non-acute to critically ill patients in the ED, and ranged from hospital-based certificate programmes to one associated with a graduate nursing programme (Fincke 1975, Geolot et al 1977, Hardy 1978, Hayden et al 1982).</p>