LONDON, October 15 /PRNewswire/ --

The latest thinking on nursing's future is biased towards the acute sector, and not enough weight is given to community practitioners, Unite, the largest union in the country, said today (Wednesday, 15 October).

Unite/Community Practitioner's and Health Visitors' Association said that the Department of Health (DH) was 'leaving community nursing and health visiting out of the intellectual loop'.

Unite/CPHVA was commenting on two new DH-commissioned documents Nurses in Society and State of the Art Metrics for Nursing: a rapid appraisal.

Obi Amadi, Unite's Lead Professional Officer, Policy & External Affairs said: 'These new reports are aimed at how nurses might realise the vision outlined by health minister, Lord Darzi earlier this year, however the emphasis is skewed far too much towards the acute sector.'

'The government has continually stated the importance of community nursing for its family-friendly agenda, but this is not always translated into policy. We feel that consideration of the community nursing role is being intellectually sidelined.'

'As always, we are more than prepared to work with government to restore community nursing services to local communities and end the debilitating culture that is prepared to see - according to the NHS's own workforce statistics - "a health visitor job being lost every 27 hours".'

For further information and a copy of the full research, please ring: Obi Amadi, Lead Professional Officer, Policy & External Affairs, +44(0)7780-955-936; Karen Reay, National Officer, Health, Unite +44(0)7798-531-004; David Fleming, National Officer, Health, Unite +44(0)7798-531013; Shaun Noble Communications Officer +44(0)20-7420-8951 (direct line)