Nurses with special interests.

High Quality Care for All (Department of Health (DH), 2008) emphasised the centrality of quality within NHS provision based upon a service that is 'fair, personalized, effective and safe'. The challenge of meeting this aspiration is even greater today amid resource constraints and the imperative of transferring more complex care out of hospitals and into primary care and community settings. The quality of care delivered to older people in particular has attracted much negative comment (Ombudsman, 2011), with the values of care and compassion appearing to have evaporated in some services.