A new clinical career structure for nurses: trial and evaluation. The South Australian experience

A new clinical career structure for nurses was planned, introduced, implemented and evaluated in South Australia in 1986. The new structure was based on the Royal Australian Nursing Federation (South Australian Branch) Model, and its trial took place in 11 health units, involving 5000 registered nurses, or one-third of the nurse workforce in South Australia. The findings of the evaluation research were utilized by Government. The sociopolitical context within which the evaluation of the new clinical career structure was implemented is re-examined in this paper.