Independent Nurse: Editorial - Pay for practice nurses needs a national policy.(Editorial)

Is the NHS in England managed centrally from Whitehall, or locally? Ministers say it is the letter. They are often at great pains to point out that they have devolved responsibility to SHAs and trusts in an effort to devise local solutions that meet local needs.

Yet last year the DoH said that every PCT should have a polyclinic, regardless of whether there was a need for one - or patients wanted one.

The House of Commons' health committee slated this policy last week, saying it would waste taxpayers' money and had been introduced without evaluation (page 4). This is a clear example of where the government should have followed its own rhetoric and allowed the …