Developing voluntary standards for district nurse education and practice.

This article charts the development of a project, funded by the Queen's Nursing Institute and Queen's Nursing Institute Scotland, to develop voluntary standards that reflect the contemporary and future practice of district nurses. The standards are designed to enhance, but not replace, the Nursing and Midwifery Council standards for district nurse specialist practice. The project encompassed the four UK countries and gathered data from a wide range of sources to inform the new standards that were launched in September 2015.