Abstract: Evidence within the literature highlights that staff within the general hospital wards are not necessarily equipped to assess and meet the needs of patients with mental health or behavioural problems. The author notes that this is cause for concern as a number of people requiring admission to the general wards often have a complex, interrelated combination of physical and mental health problems. Within New Zealand there have also been a number of changes to health care policies that have increased general nurses contact with mental health patients over the last decade. The Mental Health Consultation Liaison Nurse is an advanced nurse specialist who can meet this need. Having reviewed the literature and communicated with Mental Health Consultation Liaison Nurses in New Zealand and Australia, the author says it is clear that the availability of a mental health nurse within the district health board general wards would be advantageous to all. The role has been shown to positively influence the care of patients and benefit other health care professionals. It provides an improved system of care that is co-ordinated, integrated and responsive to the needs of patients and health care staff. The implementation of the Mental Health Consultation Liaison Nurse role has the potential to cut costs in relation to decreasing length of stay with untreated mental health issues, and reduce the cost of continued use of 'specialling' unnecessarily. Also of importance is the fact that such a position would assist the district health board to comply with the standards of health care provision as directed by the Mental Health Commission and the Ministry of Health. The author suggests that the introduction of the Mental Health Consultation Liaison Nurse role represents a change in traditional ways of providing general nursing and consequently there are a number of issues that may hinder its success. This dissertation aims to increase the visibility of mental health nursing and provide a resource for others debating the development and implementation of the Mental Health Consultation Liaison Nurse role.

Abstract: This paper continues presentation of the findings of a North Island based research project that explored the impact of clinically focused postgraduate education on advancing nursing practice. Like their international counterparts, increasing numbers of New Zealand nurses are enrolling in advanced practice programmes. Yet, despite international evidence supporting the usefulness of Masters level preparation for advancing clinical practice, questions about the need for such development persist. This paper argues that postgraduate education contributes to the development of courage and that this, in turn, is essential to overcoming the barriers that currently constrain the advancement of nursing practice.

Abstract: This study describes rural, nurse-led health services provided by the Takapau Health Centre (Central Hawkes Bay) and its outreach, Norsewood & District Health Centre. The study looks at its model of service delivery through to 2002. It examines the establishment, development, funding and management of the service, along with the nursing practice and the healthcare people received. The book is a snapshot of nursing initiative and survival through a decade of change in health policy and service funding and delivery. The information was subsequently used to move the health centre service into the new paradigm of primary health care launched in the New Zealand Health Strategy.

Abstract: The author argues that the framework of competencies required for advanced nursing practice should include a moral dimension in order to take account of relational as well as functional competencies. There is no recognition of the relational competencies required to practice caring as a moral imperative. The Nursing Council of New Zealand expects that nurses will practise 'in accord with values and moral principles'. The paper explores the history of two nursing discourses, that which sees nursing as a functional occupation and that which emphasises the relationship between nurse and patient. A practice exemplar is used to demonstrate positive outcomes from advanced relational competencies.

Abstract: Reports the audit of a nurse-led dyspepsia clinic at Auckland Hospital. Referrals to the Gastroenterology Department for gastroscopy were assessed in a dyspepsia clinic. Initial evaluation included consultation and a urea breath test (UBT). Patients given eradication treatment prior to initial clinic assessment were excluded. Patients with a positive UBT were given eradication treatment and were reviewed two months later for symptom assessment and follow-up UBT. Patients with a negative UBT were usually referred back to the GP. There were 173 patients with a mean age 38 years. The urea breath test was found to be useful as part of the initial assessment of selected patients who would otherwise have been referred for endoscopy. It is likely that the need for gastroscopy was reduced, but longer follow up will be required to determine whether or not this effect is simply due to delayed referral. This approach is likely to have value only in patients who have a relatively high chance of being H. pylori positive.

Abstract: The concept and characteristics of advanced nursing practice in New Zealand and overseas is compared with the nurse practitioner role. There is an international debate over definitions of advanced nursing and the range of roles that have developed. The rationale for the nurse practitioner role in New Zealand is examined, along with the associated legislation currently before Parliament. Job titles and roles of nurses within the Waikato Hospital intensive care unit are discussed and ways of developing the role of nurse practitioner are presented.

Abstract: This thesis contains a collection of stories gifted by four New Zealand Retrieval Team nurses who are experienced in the transport of patients. These nurses are commonly called flight nurses and they assist in the transport of patients via helicopter, fixed-wing aeroplane, large commercial aeroplanes and ambulances. While their practice is not exclusively in the helicopter there is an emphasis on this mode of transport in this thesis. Flight nursing is a scope of nursing practice where the use, and visibility, of nurses' stories is rare. The specific context of this research is positioned in one tertiary intensive care unit in New Zealand but it is anticipated that the stories from four flight nurses and the author's subsequent thoughts on them will resonate with flight nurses in other regions. The stories were collected using a storytelling methodology that has been informed by qualitative and feminist perspectives. The stories were either gathered and shaped using interview and transcription techniques with the storyteller and the researcher, or written by the storyteller. The thesis has been written as a narrative and chronicles the journey to the point of receiving the stories and the lines of inquiry in which they subsequently directed the author. The stories are central to this research and appear in their entirety. The reader is encouraged to create their own meaning from the stories. The stories themselves have several common threads, which are planning, communication, teamwork and the unexpected. The threads underpinning the stories are not unique to flight nursing practice and have been discussed in other scopes of practice. One area the author has chosen to explore in more depth is the impacts of technology, privacy, narrative pedagogy and disenfranchisement on the visibility of flight nurses' stories. The other area she has chosen for discussion is advanced and specialty nursing practice as it relates to flight nurses. As a result of this discussion she proposes her own view for advanced and specialty practice in flight nursing.