An Introduction to Community and Primary Health Care

Nurses are the best distributed and largest professional group in the rural health workforce in Australia (Bragg & Bonner, 2015; Gardner & Duffield, 2013). In New Zealand, the rural nurse specialist has developed in response to the declining numbers of GPs who practice in rural areas (Adams, Carryer & Wilkinson, 2017; Bell, 2015). Usually, rural health nurses have well-defined catchment areas or communities in which they practise. Community nurses practising in rural areas are necessarily generalists as they need to provide care for clients who have a broad range of health issues and contexts (Barrett et al., 2016; Knight, Kenny & Endacott, 2016). An increased scope of practice and greater reliance on collaboration, interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary practice is common. Rural health nurses may be sole practitioners, providing health care on their own, or as part of a small team that sometimes may include doctors. This chapter describes the purpose and key functions of this community nursing role, identifies the main focus of the role in terms of primary care and primary health care, and explains how the role does or does not address issues of social justice, equity and access.