Leadership across boundaries: a qualitative study of the nurse consultant role in English primary care

AIM: To explore the emerging role of nurse consultant in an English primary care setting. BACKGROUND: Nurse consultants have been introduced in England since 1999 as senior, non-managerial nurse leaders. They have generally found it that it takes time to negotiate manageable work-loads. DESIGN: Four qualitative case studies METHODS: Semi-structured interviews with stakeholders within the organization. Data were analysed thematically. FINDINGS: All four nurse consultants might potentially work with a very large number of disciplines, departments and other organizations. As a result, it took time to identify priorities and to make relationships. Thus, although nurse consultants are well-placed to work across boundaries, two had made relatively little progress in doing so. CONCLUSION: Nurse consultants working in primary and community health care settings are well-placed to be boundary-spanners, delivering change across organizations. Negotiating priorities and relationships are time-consuming tasks, and nurse consultants may have to work with a restricted number of partners initially.