The new Health Advisory Service for England will be launched in London next month. Martin Ward and Professor Alison Kitson, the two nurses on the Board of Trustees, discuss the work of the new organisation and consider its implications for nursing

In November 1996 a consortium consisting of the Royal College of Psychiatrists, the Royal College of Nursing, the British Geriatrics Society and the Office of Public Management was awarded the contract to manage the new Health Advisory Service (HAS) in England. The brief announcement in the House of Commons by former health secretary Stephen Dorrell heralded five months of intense organisational development work by a small group of consortium representatives, the employment of key staff and the acquisition of new London premises. While the new HAS, temporarily called HAS 2000, was launched last April, it does not become fully operational until next month's official London launch.