More and more nurses are working in the community and there is increasing emphasis on community-based training. All pre-registration nurses undertake several weeks of community based work together with related lectures during either the common foundation year or branch training. All books are currently aimed at post registration and there is a clear need for something at a lower level. In addition, large numbers of nurses following registration and acute/hospital experience are moving into the community to work at staff nurse level; existing books are largely aimed at the level above of nurse specialist with responsibility for management of care. (The Government's current strategy for nursing is to train for four different levels: health care assistant, primary care nurse (the equivalent of staff nurse), nurse specialist, and nurse consultant. Many new courses are under way for primary care nurses, eg at South Bank.) Community nurses have to adapt hospital learned skills to working in the community, often on their own with added responsibilities such as prescribing.
