Developing New Clinical Roles

Throughout the health care system, the traditional boundaries between professional groups are becoming increasingly blurred in response to local service needs and national policy objectives. New clinical roles are developing and nurses and other health professionals are finding opportunities to review and reconfigure their roles in response to changing health care needs and national policy imperatives. This book combines a comprehensive and thought provoking overview of the key issues and emerging challenges with practical suggestions for promoting appropriate and sustainable role development. Drawing on a range of contributors who reflect the multi-disciplinary context of new role development in healthcare, this book provides an essential source of information and ideas for practitioners, researchers, managers and policy makers.

Introduction. New role developments in context. The changing face of primary care: communitypharmacy; Research, evaluation and evidence-based practice; Freedom to learn freedom to be: learning, reflecting and supporting in practice; Managing new roles within the service; An invisible revolution within the clinical team; new role development for the professions allied to medicine; The consumer perspective; A medical perspective; Evaluating new role development; New role development: towards a strategic approach