Intraprofessional teamwork in district nursing: in whose interest?

The purpose of this paper is to examine intraprofessional teamworking between district nurses. Data from an exploratory study, conducted in the United Kingdom, of 130 home visits of 16 district nurses describes intraprofessional relationships in community nursing teams. Participant observation and in-depth interviews were the methods of data collection. The findings suggest that the professional culture of community nursing has led to the development of organizational rules which, in a quest to avoid conflict between team members, potentially militate against patient choice. The data presented here explore three areas of the nurses' practice: committing services, changing care and working unsocial hours.