More detailed studies are required to clarify the nature of patient education work and to create realistic conditions that enable the role to be fulfilled in everyday work. Such knowledge is of significance for nursing management in developing supportive activities for nurses.

This study aimed to explore the conditions for nurses' daily patient education work by focusing on managers' way of speaking about the patient education provided by nurses in hospital care. An explorative, qualitative design with a social constructionist perspective was used. Data were collected from three focus group interviews and analysed by means of critical discourse analysis. Discursive practice can be explained by the ideology of hegemony. Due to a heavy workload and lack of time, managers could 'see' neither their role as a supporter of the patient education provided by nurses, nor their role in the development of nurses' pedagogical competence. They used organisational, financial, medical and legal reasons for explaining their failure to support nurses' provision of patient education. The organisational discourse was an umbrella term for 'things' such as cost-effectiveness, which were prioritised over patient education. There is a need to remove managerial barriers to the professional development of nurses' patient education. Managers should be responsible for ensuring and overseeing that nurses have the prerequisites necessary for providing patient education as well as for enabling continuous reflective dialogue and opportunities for learning in practice.

Nurses' patient education must be more visualized and appropriate conditions created at each workplace. In this change process, managers' support is considered vital.

Managerial support for the development of visible patient education routines (e.g. allocation of time, place and guidelines) is required. One recommendation is to designate a person to oversee educational work.

Nurses’ patient education is important for building patients’ knowledge, understanding, and preparedness for self-management. The aim of this study was to explore the conditions for nurses’ patient education work by focusing on managers’ discourses about patient education provided by nurses. In 2012, data were derived from three focus group interviews with primary care managers. Critical discourse analysis was used to analyze the transcribed interviews. The discursive practice comprised a discourse order of economic, medical, organizational, and didactic discourses. The economic discourse was the predominant one to which the organization had to adjust. The medical discourse was self-evident and unquestioned. Managers reorganized patient education routines and structures, generally due to economic constraints. Nurses’ pedagogical competence development was unclear, and practice-based experiences of patient education were considered very important, whereas theoretical pedagogical knowledge was considered less important. Managers’ support for nurses’ practical- and theoretical-based pedagogical competence development needs to be strengthened.