The nurse practitioner role: Solution or servant in improving primary health care service delivery

In New Zealand, as in many other countries, the demand for health services is escalating as chronic disease, population ageing and health disparities increase. It has been argued that a more comprehensive primary health care approach is needed combining biomedical approaches with a social determinants and social justice based approach. The contemporary development of the nurse practitioner (NP) role in New Zealand (NZ) offers the possibility of taking up a more critical approach to strengthen and extend primary health care services (PHC). Nurse practitioners could simply be utilised to shore up the nature and style of existing primary care (PC) service configurations or, more usefully, they could lead a revolution in traditional approaches towards genuine primary health care delivery.