Editorial

Abstract

Nurses were late to wake up to the power of the purchasing function, believing that the cut-and-thrust jobs were to be had on the provider side. In part that was true. During the evolutionary stages of the NHS reforms the hype was about the trust executive nurse posts. The glamour of the top job and top salary wooed many of the brightest and the best to the provider side. Indeed, it was widely perceived that there was little need for nursing within the slimmed-down purchasing agencies.