COMMUNITY nursing will have an increasingly vital role to play in healthcare as the NHS in Wales attempts to shift the focus away from hospital-based care - and Gwent is at the forefront of the change.

Launching Wales' community nursing strategy, designed to prepare staff for that change, Assembly health minister Edwina Hart said a project such as the Gwent Frailty Programme, focusing on vulnerable older people, is a model for the rest of Wales to follow.

She told Gwent nurses at the launch in Pontypool that "nursing is going to be increasingly valued and responsible" as the strategy begins to deliver more care to patients in their own homes.

Locally based community nursing teams, case managers for individual patients, a strong community children's nursing service, training to enable nurses to better manage a switch from hospital to community nursing, development of more specialist nursing roles, and more responsibility for nurses in terms of issues such as prescribing and discharging patients, are among the strategies aims, drawn from 40 recommendations made following a review of community nursing in Wales.

Rob Sainsbury, locality nurse for Newport with Aneurin Bevan Health Board, said the process of changing the way nurses work in Gwent has been going on for some time, but there remains much to do to deliver care closer to home for patients.

"We've been increasing the amount of staff doing community training, and the focus now needs to be on the acute hospitals. People will not need to use these as much, and the message needs to go out to the public that change is happening," he said.

Lorraine Ware, senior nurse for community nursing in Newport, with more than 20 years' experience as a district nurse, said these are "exciting times" to be in nursing.

"For years, policies have set the focus on community nursing and now it is happening," she said.

"This is a great opportunity to provide care for more patients outside of hospital."