Challenges in municipality healthcare services-The nurse leaders' perspective.

Aim: To examine perceptions of key challenges that nursing leadership face when organizing healthcare services in the municipality.

Design: A qualitative study involving community nurse leaders ( = 9) in two focus group interviews.

Methods: The material has been processed and interpreted in accordance with the phenomenological-hermeneutical tradition, and this process was inspired by Graneheim and Lundman.

Results: Three themes were identified in this study: (a) Tension between organizing the daily work and future challenges; (b) Challenges with recruiting enough registered nurse (RNs) in municipal healthcare services; and (c) Competence development plan-a strategic tool for nursing leadership. The municipal healthcare services need a better knowledge base with better knowledge of both the content and quality of services, organization, leadership and management, thus improving new forms of work and professional approaches.