[The nurse practitioner as responsible clinician: opportunities and challenges].

Background: The Compulsory Mental Health Care Act in the Netherlands (CMHCA) came into effect in 2020. Mental health nurse practitioners have since been allowed to be ‘responsible clinician’ However, there seems to be diversity in the implementation of the role in practice.
Aim: To investigate the state of affairs regarding the role of the mental health nurse practitioners as ‘responsible clinician’ within the CMHCA and reflecting on this topic.
Method: Legislative texts, guidelines and professional associations have been consulted. The quality and professional statutes of eighteen large mental health institutions in the Netherlands were also studied, using the search terms ‘responsible clinician’, ‘Compulsory Mental Health Care Act’, ‘nurse practitioner’, ‘CMHCA’.
Results: The CMHCA leaves room for precise interpretation of the role of responsible clinician. In more than half of the quality and professional statutes examined (N=10), the role of responsible clinician is not specified. The other statutes (N = 8) include various frameworks for the role of a mental health nurse practitioner as responsible clinician.
Conclusion: The role of the nurse practitioner as responsible clinician is not clearly described in the statutes and guidelines reviewed. The CMHCA leaves room for how to fulfill this. We recommend a broad field consultation to arrive at clearer advice about which discipline is responsible clinician in which situation.