Defining nurse‐led models of care: Contemporary approaches to nursing

Abstract

Background

The evolving nature of nursing practice necessitates the development and implementation of contemporary models of care; however, inconsistent definitions hinder this. With the increasing demand for nurse‐led models of care, it is crucial to establish a consistent understanding to ensure the efficacy of implemented models.

Aim

We aim to provide a working definition for nursing models of care, then using this, present the key features that nurse‐led models of care should consider.

Sources of Evidence

An unstructured literature review was used to explore the research aim.

Discussion

We propose that nursing models of care be defined as involving three interrelated domains: (1) a theoretical basis that underpins conceptualisation of care, (2) organisational work methods that direct task delegation, organisational governance, and care responsibility and (3) practical methods for care delivery that describes practical care methodologies. Extrapolating from this framework, nurse‐led models of care are defined as having an evidence‐based and person‐centred theoretical basis, an organisational work method driven by nurses, and practical methods of care delivery supported by the creation of holistic care plans.

Conclusion

As the design and implementation of a model of care is influenced by unique contextual considerations, the definitions provided in this paper should be considered as a starting point for further refinement, consideration and discussion.

Implications for Nursing Policy

Standardisation in how models of care are defined enables greater understanding and improved comparability between disparate sources of evidence and can aid stakeholders by providing a common language. Creating standardisation in the terminology of nurse‐led models of care specifically supports the continued advocacy efforts for these models of care and assists policymakers and health providers in their design and implementation.

BACKGROUND

Like healthcare more broadly, nursing practice is continually evolving to meet the needs of communities and incorporate best‐practice evidence. Recently, the growing acknowledgement of the individual's perspective and experience of care has meant that the conceptualisation of ‘the patient’ is replaced by newer person‐centred understandings of ‘clients’, ‘consumers’ and ‘citizens’ among other terms (Engle et al., 2021; Håkansson Eklund et al., 2019; Santana et al., 2018; Simpson et al., 2022). This, and other shifts in the philosophy of care, ranging from fragmented and task‐oriented care to holistic person‐centred care, has necessitated the review and evolution of the underlying systems that guide how nurses conceptualise and deliver care (Ekman et al., 2011; Epstein et al., 2010; Steele Gray et al., 2020). This change can be usefully viewed through the development and implementation of contemporary ‘models of care’ (MoC).

A challenge arises, however, as there is no consistent definition of ‘models of care’ and the characteristics of differing models are unclear (Davidson et al., 2006). Prior attempts to define the term can be viewed throughout literature and policy; however, they often lack comprehensiveness and fail to encapsulate all elements. In Australia, government organisations have defined MoC broadly as the way services are delivered (NSW Agency for Clinical Innovation, 2013, p. 3; SA Health, 2023, p. 10); however, this fails to consider the wider context and role of the organisation and ignores the purpose and delivery of care. The World Health Organization (WHO) defines a MoC as the ‘conceptualization and operationalization of how services are delivered, including the processes of care, organization of providers and management of services, supported by the identification of roles and responsibilities of different platforms and providers along the pathways of care’ (WHO, 2020, p. 25). A literature review to establish a definition for MoC, conducted by Davidson and colleagues in 2006, concludes that ‘a model of care is an overarching design for the provision of a particular type of health care service…’ including ‘…defined standards…’ and ‘…a framework that provides the structure for the implementation and subsequent evaluation of care’ (Davidson et al., 2006, p. 49). The varied definitions observed throughout the literature provide a solid, if somewhat diverse, basis for understanding MoC.

With rapidly evolving healthcare technologies, consumer expectations and evidence‐based care methodologies, contemporary MoCs are required to ensure approaches to care result in the best outcomes for patients and the workforce alike. Nurses are the largest and most widely dispersed of all healthcare professionals around the world, and while MoC is not a nursing‐specific concept, it is critical to examine and understand the process by which nurses deliver care, due to the impact on patient safety. Further, unlike midwifery (AIHW, 2023), there is no catalogue of defined standards for current in‐use nursing MoC, likely due to the diverse settings and contexts in which nursing occurs. This makes it difficult to distinguish elements between MoC and results in current and newly developed models being arbitrarily categorised.

While a number of prominent historical nursing MoCs can be identified and explained (Duffield et al., 2010; Hughes, 2008; Parreira et al., 2021), these models are now often considered archaic as they do not reflect the contemporary nursing practice environment (Duffield et al., 2010; Parreira et al., 2021). However, historic nursing models can be usefully viewed in relation to the contextual factors for which they were designed, informing the development of contemporary models. Tracking the development of nursing MoC in ‘Western’ contexts, literature often points to the formalisation of structured nursing care delivery driven by Florence Nightingale's writings. At this time the focus was on the systematisation of nursing care to ensure basic care and hygiene and sanitation standards were met, thereby laying the groundwork for modern nursing. The Functional Nursing Model, which describes a task‐based approach to nursing driven by the increased demands on nursing and medicine caused by WWII, is often cited as the most popular model during this time (Fairbrother et al., 2015; Parreira et al., 2021). At the turn of the 20th century, nursing care saw a shift towards evidence‐based approaches. This shift was driven by the formalisation of nursing education and the development of foundational nursing theories, notably Henderson's definition of nursing and Orem's Self‐Care Deficit Theory (Henderson et al., 1978; Yip, 2021). Towards the middle of the 20th century, understandings of holistic care needs, informed by theories such as Watson's Theory of Human Caring and Rogers's Humanistic Theory, moved the focus of nursing care beyond physical health to include psychological and social dimensions (Fairbrother et al., 2015; Parreira et al., 2021). With the increasing complexity of nursing care, organisational processes such as Orlando's Nursing Process Theory gave way to more modern MoCs that emphasise the importance of person‐centred and individualised care, coordination of care and evidence‐based practice; many of which are still in use (Faust, 2013). By tracking the development of nursing MoC, it can be observed that advancements are driven by environmental factors that lead to new understandings and conceptualisations of the nursing role. It can also be viewed that nursing MoC lack standardisation of conceptual frameworks, with some ‘MoC’ describing only working methods and others being more consistent with nursing theories.

A contemporary approach to nursing practice, with increasing focus in literature, is ‘nurse‐led models of care’. As with MoC more broadly, the principles that constitute this MoC are unclear. ‘Nurse‐led care’ has existed for some time, and there are many examples of care contexts where nurses lead healthcare teams, particularly in community and aged care settings. Medical staff shortages around the world, increasing pressure on the workforce driven by heightened consumer demand, and population changes, such as the ageing population and increasing prevalence of chronic disorders, have necessitated new MoCs to be developed that ensure efficiency in care delivery by enabling healthcare professionals to work to their full scopes of practice. This gave way to the nurse‐led approach becoming increasingly widespread and recognised globally (Cullum et al., 2005). In many settings, nurse‐led MoCs have been confirmed as beneficial, safe, and a cost‐/resource‐effective approach to healthcare (Antic et al., 2009; Courtenay & Carey, 2008; Cullum et al., 2005; Davis et al., 2021; Fitzsimmons et al., 2005; Gordon et al., 2019; Randall et al., 2017; Wiles et al., 2001). Growing recognition for the benefits these models offer highlights the need to establish formalised structures and clear conceptual frameworks to support their wider implementation.

Acknowledging that, while lacking consistency, definitions of MoC exist, this paper intends to present a workable definition of models of care as they relate to nursing as a practice. Using this framework, categorical elements that constitute ‘nurse‐led models of care’ will then be developed. It is anticipated that the wider nursing‐specific definition will be more appropriate and applicable across a breadth of nursing contexts than existing definitions, and the ‘nurse‐led’ definition will guide the development of contemporary models.

Sources of evidence

An unstructured literature review was used to explore the research aim. Researchers experienced in evidence synthesis and nursing policy research reviewed academic and grey literature concerning ‘models of care’ to derive an evidence‐informed definition built upon common elements present throughout international literature.

What is a model of care?

Taking inspiration from previously developed definitions, an MoC can be generally defined as the overarching theoretical and conceptual framework that influences all aspects of healthcare delivery including the methods of care organisation (Davidson et al., 2006; Parreira et al., 2021; Splaine Wiggins, 2008), a structure for both the delivery and evaluation of care (Davidson et al., 2006), and defined standards and principles of care (NSW Agency for Clinical Innovation, 2013). An MoC, at its most basic level, describes the way in which care is delivered within a specific context.

The elements of an MoC selected for a particular context should be based on the best available evidence and developed through collaboration between experts, community members, relevant health professionals, policymakers and professional organisations (Davidson et al., 2006). The purpose of an MoC is to enable a shared consensus of healthcare delivery values between parties and to inform the method of care delivery and organisational structure (NSW Agency for Clinical Innovation, 2013). Importantly, in terms of conceptualisation, organisation and delivery of care, an MoC must incorporate clear considerations of local contextual and cultural factors and environments (Parreira et al., 2021). In this way, an MoC should be tailored for the context in which it is applied and aimed at achieving the best care outcomes for the people and organisations within that context.

Based on this, we propose that an MoC be defined as involving three interrelated domains:

1. A theoretical basis that underpins the delivery and conceptualisation of care across all domains. Examples of a theoretical basis include ‘person‐centred care’ (The American Geriatrics Society Expert Panel on Person‐Centered Care, 2016), ‘evidence‐based care’ (Rycroft‐Malone et al., 2004), ‘holistic care’ (Jasemi et al., 2017) and ‘value‐based care’ (Tseng & Hicks, 2016). Each of these broadly outlines a theory or approach towards care that acts as a guiding principle (McEwen, 2014). In this way, the theoretical basis of a MoC influences all other parts of the model.

2. Organisational work methods that support the care conceptualisation, including delegation of care responsibility, organisational governance, and interface with other healthcare teams and the wider organisation (Parreira et al., 2021). An example, using a historic nursing ‘model of care’ can be viewed in the Team Nursing Method, where nurses are divided into nursing teams responsible for a caseload of patients (care responsibility), headed by a nursing team leader who is typically a senior nurse or holds additional qualifications (organisational governance). Team leaders are then responsible for the coordination and delivery of care to the patients assigned to them (care responsibility) (Beckett et al., 2021; Parreira et al., 2021). Broadly this domain describes the set roles for each member of the healthcare team.

3. Practical methods of care delivery that ensure the care methods used in the model align with the theoretical basis. For example, while the way an injection is given may not be explicitly influenced by a theoretical basis of patient‐centredness, other aspects such as the attitude that the practitioner displays are directly informed by this theoretical basis and flow through to their actions and assessment. This might be apparent through a practitioner using empathetically informed language, such as referring to the sensation of an injection as ‘pressure’ rather than ‘a sting’ to help reduce pain or discomfort experienced by the patient. This domain may also address ‘who’ delivers care and ‘why’. For example, in a person‐centred MoC, a nurse might educate and supervise a patient with diabetes to self‐administer insulin injections. This empowers the patient to take charge of their diabetes management, enhancing the safety of at‐home injections and improving care outcomes. In other situations, for example, a patient with a needle phobia, an individualised and person‐centred approach, informed by therapeutic evidence, would be employed instead. Importantly, the care delivery in this example is driven by the decision‐making framework described by the ‘organisational work methods’ domain that includes assessment, monitoring and evaluation with consideration to the ‘theoretical basis’ of person‐centred care. To this extent, it can be observed how all the domains complement to inform how care is practically delivered to meet the specific health needs of the population it serves.

Further, MoCs must necessarily include consideration of a range of other factors that influence their establishment, content, implementation, and sustainability (see Figure 1). The purpose of the MoC (i.e., the patient groups and health conditions the model has been designed to address) and the health needs of the community at large should be the key considerations during the design of the MoC and will likely be the main influences to selecting a particular theoretical basis (NSW Agency for Clinical Innovation, 2013). In this way, each MoC, while sharing elements, will be unique in its approach to care.

FIGURE 1.

Proposed model of care framework.

What is a nurse‐led model of care?

While there is no one universal definition of a ‘nurse‐led model of care’, it typically involves a nurse, or a group of nurses working at advanced practice levels, with specialised knowledge and expertise in a particular area of healthcare (Antic et al., 2009; Schmüdderich et al., 2023), serving as the primary architect of care planning and delivery in coordination and consultation with a multidisciplinary team (Fedele, 2020; Gonçalves et al., 2023; Schmüdderich et al., 2023; Wiles et al., 2001). Within a nurse‐led MoC, nurses typically work with a patient caseload (Hatchett, 2013) and coordinate all aspects of care (Wong & Chung, 2006). The care provided is person‐centred and holistic encompassing assessment, ‘management of symptoms’, ‘prevention of complications’, ‘client satisfaction’ and evaluation of care (Hatchett, 2013; Hill, 1992; Loftus & Weston, 2001; Wong & Chung, 2006), while considering and addressing the social determinants of health (Courtenay & Carey, 2008; Hatchett, 2013; Hewlett & Taylor, 2015; Hill, 1992; Loftus & Weston, 2001; Lyndon et al., 2022).

An important distinction here is how the term ‘led’ is used in an MoC. To ‘lead’ an MoC, the group, that is, nurses, must be the ones who hold ultimate responsibility and accountability for the quality of care provided to people and communities (Van Zwanenberg & Edwards, 2018). Further, the nurses are responsible for continuously improving the quality of their service through ongoing evaluation (Macfarlane, 2019). If the care is nurse‐led, that is, nurses are given responsibility for the delivery of care, this is distinguishable from a nurse‐led MoC, where nurses must have primary responsibility in the clinical governance framework of all aspects of the MoC, not just care delivery.

Based on these elements, it is proposed that a ‘Nurse‐led Model of Care’ be defined as an evidence‐based, person‐centred and holistic MoC that focuses on the delivery of high‐quality individualised care. This is achieved through comprehensive assessments that include consideration of the social determinants of health and the creation of holistic, individualised care plans, monitoring and evaluation. Interventions under this MoC are based on the best available evidence, considerate of individual preferences and culture, and incorporate the physical, emotional, social and spiritual needs of the client. This model places nurses in leadership roles within the clinical governance framework, where they are responsible for ensuring the quality, and continuous improvement, of care planning and delivery (Macfarlane, 2019), with support from a multidisciplinary team as needed (see Table  1A, 1B).

TABLE 1A.

Elements that make up a nurse‐led MoC.

Domain	Description of elements required for the MoC to be ‘nurse‐led’
Theoretical Basis	The model has a theoretical basis of evidence‐based, person‐centred, holistic, and individualised care.
Organisational Work Methods	The model is nurse‐led, where nurses have primary responsibility in the clinical governance framework, are responsible for care planning, provision, delegation, and referral, and hold overall responsibility for care delivery outcomes. The nurse works with a caseload of patients in collaboration with a wider multidisciplinary team, however, are given leadership and authority to be able to practice autonomously as the lead of all care elements within their scope of practice.
Practical Methods of Care Delivery	Nurses uphold the theoretical basis of care through comprehensive needs assessments and the creation, monitoring and evaluation of holistic, individualised person‐centred care plans. Interventions and care are based on the best available evidence, considerate of individual preferences and culture, and incorporate the physical, emotional, social, and spiritual needs of the patient.

Note: The ‘Purpose’ and ‘Context’ domains of the model of care have not been defined as, by their nature, these domains are dependent on external factors surrounding the implementation of a specific MoC.

TABLE 1B.

 Model for a nurse‐led care coordination service within a multi‐disciplinary clinic

Domain	Model for a nurse‐led care coordination service within a multi‐disciplinary clinic
Concept	The model is intended to be implemented from the outpatient setting and enable continuity of healthcare for people with multimorbidity. Additionally, the model aims to facilitate well‐co‐ordinated transitional care between the secondary and primary healthcare settings; monitoring and keeping patients managed well in the community and reducing avoidable hospital admissions.
Theoretical Basis	The theoretical basis of this model emphasises the delivery of person‐centred, holistic, and individualised care within a nurse‐led framework. In the context of this model ‘person‐centred’ refers to an acknowledgment of the entirety of a person's needs and preferences, beyond only the clinical or medical (i.e., holistic, individualised care), and allows for the concept of a person driving their own healthcare decisions in partnership with their healthcare team. Further, the model is evidence‐based, incorporating tools and interventions that the literature supports as resulting in the best outcomes for people with multimorbidity.
Organisational Work Methods	The model is nurse‐led, with nurses being the lead in care coordination and delivery, within a multidisciplinary setting enabling collaboration and continuity of care. ‘Continuity of care’ and ‘multidisciplinary care’ within this model are upheld through the nurse‐led care coordinator role, who is responsible for the overall care management of patients, including ensuring continuity in referrals to a multidisciplinary team and the primary health sector, optimisation of care using an iterative assessment approach that incorporates consumer engagement and subjective (physical symptoms, risk) and objective (clinical signs) measures, through to discharge planning and ongoing care management, goal setting, health optimisation, and health coaching. Governance within this model is designed on principles of shared governance, consumer engagement, interprofessional and workplace engagement and responsibility. Within this, there is clear workplace leadership, structure, management, lines of responsibility and roles, and expectations and outcomes. As implementation of any MoC is fundamentally influenced by its setting/context, these factors will likely be determined by a range of local factors (e.g., local resources, policies, staffing, and governance structures), however, the consistent element will be a senior nurse with extensive clinical experience in the field of multidisciplinary care as the clinical lead.
Practical Methods of Care Delivery	The model upholds the theoretical basis of ‘person‐centredness’ in practical terms through a comprehensive care planning process. This method of care delivery enables patients to work collaboratively with clinicians to set their own individual clinical health goals, and discuss and make decisions regarding their unique physical, emotional, social, and spiritual needs. These might include considerations around perceived/experienced health and wellness, functional status, mental health/psychosomatic concerns, medications, family/caregiver situation, spirituality, and assessments relevant across the lifespan. Within care delivery, patients are consulted at all stages which allows for the building of trust and rapport and individual acknowledgment.
Context	A wide range of contextual factors, some more permanent others more transient, influence the implementation of a MoC. Some contextual factors that drove the development of this model included resource scarcity during and after the COVID‐19 pandemic, so part of the aim of the model was to reduce pressure on the primary care sector. This was to be achieved by keeping those at greatest risk of infection and serious harm out of the hospital by providing access to the MoC inclusive of a specialist service that maintains engagement with the primary care sector and has interfaces with a multidisciplinary team. Resourcing/funding to support the delivery of a MoC is also a key consideration for many models in terms of implementation and sustainability. Implementation of this model included consideration of how flexibility in terms of funding streams (i.e., from primary and secondary healthcare sectors) might pose a potential barrier to sustainable implementation.
Evaluation Framework	The model also features a comprehensive evaluation framework and promotes continuous improvement. This is achieved through person/consumer engagement with evaluation and improvement, embedded quality improvement cycle and processes, embedded and ongoing research and improvement, continuing professional development education and upskilling and key performance indicators for nursing, medical, and allied health.

Adapted with permission from: Davis KM., et al. (2020). Continuity of care for people with multimorbidity: the development of a model for a nurse‐led care coordination service. Australian Journal of Advanced Nursing, 37(4): 7‐19.

It is essential to recognise that this definition represents the foundational elements of a nurse‐led MoC and does not encompass the specific concepts or contexts in which these models are implemented. For a practical example of a nurse‐led MoC tailored for people living with multimorbidity, see Supplementary Appendix S1. The example describes the model's objectives, contextual factors surrounding and driving its implementation, and the relevant details across our defined domains. Supplementary Appendix S1 provides clarity on important concepts introduced throughout this paper.

DISCUSSION

While a workable definition of ‘model of care’ was provided in this paper, the design and implementation of an MoC are accompanied by a multitude of complexities and considerations such as workforce availability, healthcare funding, regulation environment, socio‐economic factors, public and government attitude towards health care, geographic factors and resource scarcity amongst others, which are beyond the scope of this paper. Notwithstanding, we recognise the economic, organisational and regulatory pressures faced by healthcare policymakers. With that, we suggest that the fluidity of an MoC should be a core design feature, as it allows for an approach that is adaptable to changes in the economic, organisational, environmental, workforce and regulatory context. For example, workforce shortages and skill mix issues may require an MoC to be adapted in terms of the organisational work method to accommodate for these pressures. This may be visible through changes to task delegation whereby staff with higher levels of qualifications and experience are delegated more complex tasks aligned to their scope of practice, and an unregulated workforce is recruited to handle other tasks under delegation and supervision. In this way, the theoretical basis and core focus of the model remain unchanged, with adjustments in the delivery of care and organisational work methods made to meet changing contextual factors for example, changes in, government funding, scope of practice, organisation regulations or union rules and staff shortages (Prentice et al., 2022). An example within the Australian healthcare context was observed during the COVID‐19 pandemic where hospital wards adapted to increasing needs and social distancing requirements through the deployment of virtual care technologies (Schultz et al., 2021). In this way, the external pressures placed on the healthcare system were addressed through the evaluation of patient and community needs and adjustment of care methodologies to enable safe and effective patient management while maintaining isolation requirements (Schultz et al., 2021). Further, this action was facilitated by a change in the economic context surrounding the healthcare service, as the Australian Government released funding for virtual care technologies and training and to fund collaboration between disparate services (hospital, community and paramedics) to work closely and streamline care (Department of Health, 2020).

An important consideration during the MoC design process is ensuring that the purpose of an MoC is maintained throughout. An MoC's purpose, in the healthcare context, is ultimately to provide care to people and improve outcomes. The MoC should enable practitioners to provide safe, equitable, dignified and high‐quality care. While considerations such as the availability of resources and the financial context in which the model will be employed must realistically be incorporated into the model to ensure its sustainability, their influence on the development or implementation of the MoC should not corrupt its ultimate purpose of providing person‐centred care. For example, the issue of patients’ inability to afford care, pervasive across the United States (Arnetz et al., 2022), is unavoidably influential in terms of healthcare delivery (Levesque et al., 2013). Similar issues have been observed around the world and across the different sectors of healthcare, each with unique considerations and complexities. This has been highly debated in terms of balancing the financial viability of the for‐profit primary healthcare sector and a patient's ability to pay and receive equitable access to care (Asamani et al., 2021; Callander, 2023; Liaropoulos & Goranitis, 2015; Russell, 1996). It is our position that access to health care is a human right and therefore basing an MoC on financially motivated considerations is antithetical to the philosophy underpinning the health professions. If the model is based on financial factors such as cost savings or profit margins for a health service organisation the core focus is no longer person‐centred care, and therefore the model is no longer an MoC but rather a business model.

CONCLUSION

In this paper, we propose a working definition of the ‘model of care’ that forms the basis for a definition of ‘nurse‐led models of care’. The definition of MoC provided in this paper should be considered as a starting point for further refinement and consideration. Similarly, the definition for nurse‐led MoC proposed in this paper is to be considered as a high‐level overview of the main elements that make a model of care ‘nurse‐led’. While this definition includes the minimum key elements that should be consistent across the board label of ‘nurse‐led models’, distinctive and comprehensive differences will be viewed between models in this category as the structure and function of the model will be dependent on its purpose and the context in which the model is to be applied. The definition provided in this paper is to be used as guiding principles in the consideration of other factors that are influential to the development of a nursing MoC, such as the speciality and priority population that the model will address, the best available evidence that determines the approach to care, links to local strategic plans and initiatives, the availability of different care providers and multidisciplinary services and the costing, funding and revenue opportunities, all of which should be considered in collaboration with key stakeholders, such as clinicians, managers, health care partners, the community and with patients, their carers and/or the organisations that represent them (NSW Agency for Clinical Innovation, 2013).

IMPLICATIONS FOR NURSING POLICY

Contemporary shifts in the conceptualisation of care and the movement away from medico‐centricity towards person‐centred care have resulted in a sector‐wide shift in MoC. While the literature regarding MoC is inconsistent, we propose a new definition of nurse‐led MoC and a framework of elements to incorporate when explaining or developing an MoC that the definition is consistent and complementary to pre‐existing definitions and applicable across multiple practice contexts. Greater standardisation in the conceptualisation of nurse‐led MoC (and MoC more broadly) will allow for a greater understanding of these MoCs, improved comparability between MoC, and development, research and evaluation of MoC and the roles that different health practitioners hold within them. Creating standardisation in the terminology of nurse‐led MoC specifically supports the continued advocacy efforts for these models of care and assists policymakers and health providers in their design. This, in turn, contributes to nurses being able to practice with greater professional autonomy, work to the full scope of practice, and practice with increased responsibility within the clinical governance framework, through the enablement and recognition of nurses as leaders in the health sector. With the increasing utilisation of contemporary MoCs and nurses in leadership positions, there is a need for Australia to establish a comprehensive nursing MoC database, similar to the Maternity Care Classification System for midwifery, to ensure standardisation and ease of quality monitoring across institutions.

AUTHOR CONTRIBUTIONS

Study conceptualisation: Jarrod Clarke and Micah D.J. Peters. Literature search: Jarrod Clarke. Manuscript writing: Jarrod Clarke, Kate Davis, Jane Douglas and Micah D.J. Peters.

CONFLICT OF INTEREST STATEMENT

The authors declare no conflicts of interest.

FUNDING INFORMATION

This paper received no direct funding.

Supporting information

Supporting Information

Clarke, J. , Davis, K. , Douglas, J. , & Peters, M.D.J. (2025) Defining nurse‐led models of care: Contemporary approaches to nursing. International Nursing Review, 72, e13076. 10.1111/inr.13076