Book excerpt: This book details and explains the nurse manager's tasks in a health service organisation, giving the practitioner and student a solid, in-depth grounding in essential managerial skills. The text deals with: quality assurance and improvement; strategic health and human resources planning; the design and commissioning of health service facilities; group dynamics; labour relations; job evaluation; leadership; staff development; financial management. Appropriate practical examples supplement theory and ensure the relevance of this five-part, multi-authored book which deals with all the basic managerial skills the modern nurse needs to provide a nursing service.