Developing Community Nursing Practice

Modern health care expects the individual practitioner to develop patient-focused, accessible and evidence-based community services. Despite the fact that the introduction and management of change is now a feature of professional education, community nurses often feel ill-prepared for introducing change in the real world, perceiving a gap between theory and practice. This book aims to close that gap. Offering wide-ranging case study experience of contemporary community nursing, it addresses often neglected issues in practice development such as evaluation and sustainability. It gives guidance on how to identify what aspects of practice need to be developed; on how to convince others of the need to change; on how to work across organizational boundaries; and on the likely hazards and how to tackle them.