Over the last forty years, nursing's claim to professional expertise has been expressed in terms of its care-giving function. Informed by a distinctive ‘holistic’ approach, models of nursing identify therapeutic relationships as the cornerstone of practice. While ‘knowing the patient’...

Drawing on end of life care as an illustrative case, this paper critically examines the provision of care in the home, identifying a number of inherent tensions. For 60 years the hospital has been the preferred site of care. However, the UK caring division of labour is currently undergoing a...

Care pathways are multidisciplinary care management technologies which map out chronologically activities in a healthcare process. In the UK, they are advanced as a mechanism for enacting the changes called for under clinical governance. The terminological imprecision of care pathway methodology...