Over the past 20years, nursing has begun to rediscover some of its basic 'truths' which have become obscured because of the rise in technology and medical knowledge this century. One of these basic 'truths' is the concern of this book - that intelligent, sensitive nursing does make a difference to the consumers of health care. Like most essential truths, this seems almost too obvious to be stated. Nevertheless, many nurses have become increasingly aware of a commonly held view that ,getting better' or staying healthy is largely dependent upon the intervention of or monitoring by medical practitioners and paramedical therapists together with the technology they use and that nurses merely carry out the orders of such workers and keep things in order. An apt analogy, frequently used, is that of the air journey. The point of the journey is to get from A to Band is largely dependentupon the aeroplane (i.e. the technology in health care) and the crew in the cockpit (i.e.
