Abstract

The concept of ‘empowerment’ has become an ‘in-phrase’ of the 1990s, underpinning both government and nursing ideology. However,‘empowerment’ lacks clear definition and has hitherto been attributed to relationships between health care professionals and their client/patient groups.This paper suggests that empowerment amongst health care professionals arises when patients with rare disorders have specialist needs, which some groups of health care professionals lack the specialist knowledge to provide. Drawing on data from a large, two-stage study in which both quantitative and qualitative data were collected to examine the work of paediatric oncology outreach nurse specialists (POONSs) and the relationships they develop with other health care professionals, this paper discusses how POONSs empower primary health care teams to care for children with malignant disease. Empirical data were collected in 1993 from 43 POONSs throughout the UK and the Republic of Ireland by semi-structured interview, either by telephone or in person. In addition, between October 1994 and April 1995,65 focused individual and group interviews were conducted with a range of other health care professionals from three locations including 45 health visitors, district nurses and general practitioners.