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Health care delivery for people with HIV infection and AIDS will need to change in the future to accommodate the expected increasing numbers of people affected. Nurses have an important role in preventing the spread of HIV infection and in caring for this group of people.

Managed care is a system of coordinating and structuring health care for use by all members of the multidisciplinary team. It is intended to provide quality, cost-effective care that is research- or evidence-based. With limited resources available to the NHS and constantly increasing healthcare costs, a balance needs to be reached between quality and cost. Managed care progammes have the potential to achieve this. This article describes the concept of managed care and some of the tools used in managed care programmes. The benefits of adopting such a system are discussed and the issues that should be considered before its implementation examined.