‘Facilitation’ of practice development: a concept analysis

Abstract ‘Facilitation’ is a concept frequently referred to as a strategy for enabling the process of developing nursing practice. However, despite its frequent usage and importance to the development of practice, ‘facilitation’ in a practice development context is poorly defined and there is a scarcity of literature relating to this specific use of the concept, which has previously been explored in relation to the role and function of facilitation in evidence‐based practice (Harvey et al. 2002). However, practice development is broader than the implementation of evidence‐based practice (Unsworth 2000) and here the aim is to add to the understanding of the concept for ‘practice developers’ with diverse role remits.