Background There have been significant conceptual developments regarding shared decision-making (SDM) and assessments of people's hypothetical preferences for involvement in treatment or care decisions. There are few data on the perceptions of patients and professionals about SDM in actual practice.

In order to obtain the best patient outcomes in community nursing, practice needs to be underpinned by robust research-based evidence. This article describes a Community Nursing Research Strategy developed and implemented in Wales to provide the nursing profession with the evidence to support future organisational and professional change in achieving excellence in the community. This was developed in partnership with education, research, health services, workforce planning and Government using consensus methodology (specifically, a nominal group technique). Consequently, the process was inclusive and included three steps: escalating presentation of ideas, topic debate and topic rating. The result was a strategy with four implementation strands, including a virtual network, research portfolio, application to practice and leadership.

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