title: Back to the community.
abstract: Community nurses have been placed at the centre of plans to reform the NHS in all four UK countries. There is an assumption that more care will be delivered in, or closer to, patients' homes as the NHS strives to minimise hospital admissions. This is partly driven by the need to save money - as keeping a patient on a hospital ward overnight is so expensive - and also in response to patients' preference to be nearer their families and friends.