Demography, nursing and community care: a review of the evidence

Demography is a most powerful influence upon social policy making. Policy making cannot be divorced from the constitution and the characteristics of the population for which it is intended. This paper commences by identifying and reviewing the most potent of those trends, and then examines the implications, first for the capacity of the community to cope with its dependents and then for the supply of nurses, before illustrating the importance of community nursing to government policies on community care.