Large scale food retail interventions and diet.

units make decisions about discharge also need to be explored. Nurses may, rightly or wrongly, be more conservative in discharging patients. They may err on the side of caution, but the benefits of these conservative decisions can only be judged with longer term follow up. Do these two new studies help us understand the differences between medical and nursing care? We think they usefully remind us that nursing care is not necessarily less costly and that the extra costs may be worth the benefits but that health outcomes need to be measured carefully in studies of sufficient power. It should not be assumed that the outcomes of nursing and medical care are equivalent. The skills of healthcare professionals and their assistants are much in demand and constitute a limited resource that needs to be deployed in the most cost effective way. Although UK health policy supports the development of nursing roles, as nurses take on more duties and responsibilities we must also question what, if anything, is being lost from nursing, to whom and does it matter?