'Nurse entrepreneurs' a case of government rhetoric?
BACKGROUND
Nursing has come to play a prominent role in government health policy since 1997. Extending the scope of nursing practice into activities previously carried out by doctors can assist a managerialist and 'modernizing' project of increasing National Health Service (NHS) efficiency by removing demarcations between professional groups.


METHODS
Drawing on elements of poststructuralist linguistics, this paper presents an analysis of a key government speech in the context of a discussion of overall policy intentions.


RESULTS
The speech can be seen as an example of how government has attempted to use rhetoric to make its goals attractive to nurses.


CONCLUSIONS
Policy-makers have to make their policies acceptable to those whom they expect to implement them. In this case, organizational efficiency, chiefly in terms of broader access to NHS services, as well as role substitution, is aligned with government policy promoting social enterprise and 'sold' to the nursing profession as enhancing its status compared with medicine.
Traynor
Michael
M
School of Health and Social Sciences, Middlesex University, London, UK. M.Traynor@mdx.ac.uk
Drennan
Vari
V
Goodman
Claire
C
Mark
Annabelle
A
Davis
Kathy
K
Peacock
Richard
R
Banning
Maggi
M
D016520:Entrepreneurship; D006801:Humans; D024802:Nurse's Role; D011050:Policy Making; D013222:State Medicine; D006113:United Kingdom