District nursing, the disabled and the elderly: who are the black patients?

Community care research in central Birmingham has shown that disabled and old black people are under‐represented on thecaseloads of distnct nurses compared to their white counterparts Whilst factors suggested as contributing to this (service ethnocentnsm and general practitioners as ‘gate‐keepers’) are discussed elsewhere, this paper focuses on those few old and disabled black people who are distnct nurse patients Following comparisons between these black and white patient groups, the differing perspectives of black patient and distnct nurse are explored Stereotypes and myths, knowledge about each other and language/communication are discussed as important areas which may disadvantage black patients in their interaction withdistrict nurses Attention is drawn to the urgent need for distnct nursing to address the issue of black disabled and old people in the community and the accompanying central role of research