Editorial. Nurses must embrace and support health policies

The NHS is increasingly policy driven and not a week goes by without the thud of another weighty tome landing on some beleaguered chief executive's desk. The role of health policy is primarily concerned with the health and welfare of individuals or groups in society, and such policies are generated at local, national and international levels. The production of health policy is often coordinated by a panel of experts who may spend many months consulting the best evidence before committing to paper. Consequently when a policy is published, often in a blaze of media publicity, it represents the very best standards of evidence-based care attainable in contemporary health settings