Nurses and nursing in primary medical care in England.

In 1974 we sent questionnaires on attachment and employment of nurses to 9214 general practices in England. There were 7863 replies (85%), of which 551 were excluded from the study. A total of 2654 nurses were directly employed by 24% (1774) of the practices, and 68% (4972) had attached nurses. Practices in health centres were larger and had greater nursing resources than those in other premises. We suggest that practices may employ nurses to compensate for ineffective nursing attachments, and we conclude that general-practice-employed nurses are becoming "professionalised".