Public health and nursing practice: Seizing the receptive moment

Both nursing and government policy indicate the crucial role that all nurses have in the public health arena and yet it would seem that the role of the nurse in general within public health is open to debate and criticism. The author has a responsibility for the development of public health across the undergraduate curriculum within a university. This paper presents a discussion of some of the issues raised from student nurses, nurse lecturers and nurse managers. These discussions are as a result of both a 5 year PhD study undertaken by the author and a revalidation the undergraduate nursing programme within the author’s organisation. The aim of the paper being to consider what is needed to put public health at the core of all and every nurse’s practice across the UK. It takes the approach of lessons learned as it discusses some of the changes made to the author’s own organisations undergraduate nurse curriculum, and those changes which still need to happen in order for nursing to identify its public health capacity. Such changes it may be suggested are easily transferable across all UK nursing curricula.