This article uses the University College London Institute of Health Equity’s (IHE) 2013 report, Working for Health Equity: The Role of Health Professionals, as a framework for considering ways that nurses in clinical, educational, or managerial roles in primary care can help address health inequalities using a social determinants approach. 

Although organisations such as the British Medical Association (BMA, 2011), the Royal College of Nursing (RCN, 2012), the Royal College of Physicians (RCP, 2010) and Public Health England (PHE, 2014) have set out how doctors and nurses can address inequalities, in the author’s opinion there is little written about how general practice nurses (GPNs), in commissioning, education or clinical roles, can specifically help.