Nursing care and collaborative practice

This article argues that the time is right for nurses in the UK to become the case managers in all healthcare settings. The re-launch of family health nursing, as a model for the organization and delivery of nursing care in the community, and the advent of the GP practice-based self-managed integrated nursing teams, offer the means by which to take up the opportunities presented by recent legislation and the national strategies for promoting partnership working and collaborative practice. Nurses could approach this by combining their current involvement with developing the single assessment process for older people with the overall development of interprofessional collaborative practice across all boundaries in health and social services. Despite the new opportunities, this will not be straightforward because of the still existing problems associated with the health and social care divide. In order to generate high quality care, it is imperative for nurses and their patients that the profession gains control and ownership of its own policy, remit and practice. Nursing care should be defined according to the patient's condition, so that their dependency level, diagnostic picture and potential for rehabilitation govern the eligibility criteria for health or social care and not the level of technicality in the task itself.