Nursing in the Community: an essential guide to practice (One Stop Doc Revision Series) Paperback – Illustrated, 30 April 2004

Excellent

This book is interesting from my point of view for its description of the many facets of a paradigm shift of extent that occurs when a distinct health system undertakes major reforms. The analysis in this book though focuses exclusively on the UK's public NHS, a health system that is in the process of shifting more of the acute and hospital care based provision to primary and community care settings. Also, the subject is approached from a largely Nursing Profession perspective. Emphasis is put on the impacts that the shift of policies has on the Nursing practice in the Community, among others on collaboration and teamwork, the working across professional boundaries or even the development of new skills and attitudes.The only slight shortcoming of the book in my view is that it has overall practical application in the NHS only, on which the presentation is focused. It is understood that some of the current developments in the UK care system are based on top-down political decisions and less on auto dynamic processes. The depiction of what a 21st century primary care driven health care delivery model can be keeps however its full value and interest. One just wonders whether other more liberal systems such as the US one would see the same causes and effects in their system. Are the findings described in this book indeed representative of developments in other systems, i.e. generic globally?