Primary, Intermediate Care and Public Health Essay
In this context, it has been stated that ‘research has increasingly compared nurse-led care with usual care for aspects of health care previously delivered by doctors; however, nurse-led care does not have one meaning; nurse-led care can be usefully viewed as a continuum with, at one end, nurses undertaking highly protocol-driven, focused tasks (cardioversion, smoking cessation) and, at the other end, responding to far more diverse challenges in terms of clinical decision making, such as first contact care and rehabilitation’ (BMJ, 2005, 1). The role of the nurse has been recognized also by the authorized governmental bodies and as a result, it has been decided that the authorities given to nurses should be increased in order for them to act more effectively regarding the support of the public health. Primary, Intermediate Care and Public Health Essay.
In 2001 the UK government proceeded to the installation of a National Service Framework for older people. The scheme which was designed in order to ensure that the older people would be offered higher quality services was based on the following plans: limitation of the age discrimination and support of the person-centered care through the introduction of a series of integrated services. Moreover ‘a new layer of intermediate care was being developed at home or in care settings, while general hospital care was planned to be delivered by the appropriate hospital staff; also, NHS was committed to taking action on stroke prevention, in the promotion of health and active life and a reduction in the number of falls for older people’ (National Service Framework for older people, 2001). Another important element of the above scheme was that older people would be offered integrated health mental services.
Among the general principles, the above Framework contains the provisions which regulate all issues regarding the single assessment process, the primary and the intermediate care, and the communication between older people and the medical staff. Specifically, regarding the responsibilities of nurses, this Framework sets a series of rules that should be applied by nurses when delivering care either at a primary or an intermediate level.