Community nurse attitudes to the clinical nurse specialist

At a time of unprecedented change in community nursing, it is appropriate to revisit the role of specialist and generalist nurses in community nursing teams. The data presented here are from a study of 130 home visits of 16 district nurses; the methods of data collection were participant observation and in-depth interview. Findings reflect a climate in which a substantial proportion of the community nurses' traditional role has been redefined as being the work of social services carers. There is a desire to become more involved in each area of community nursing work as the management of pain, diabetes and stoma care which, although common everyday activities, have increasingly been taken on by the clinical nurse specialist.