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Although the finding of convergent validity is insufficient to establish construct validity for competency as used in both measures in this study, it is an important step towards this goal. Future studies on relationships between competencies must take into account the validity and reliability of the tools.

The changing roles within health care teams reflect the rapid pace of change in contemporary health care environments. Traditional nursing roles and responsibilities are being challenged as fiscal constraints drive health reform. How nursing teams are configured in the future and the scope of practice of the individuals within those teams will require clear and unambiguous boundaries. This study explores the relationships in and between scope of practice and communication amongst teams of nurses. Six focus groups with both Registered and Enrolled Nurses were undertaken in three Sydney metropolitan hospitals in New South Wales. Nurses report that confusion surrounding scope of practice particularly in the areas of medication administration, patient allocation and workload are resulting in situations whereby nurses are feeling bullied, stressed and harassed. With the imminent widespread introduction of a third tier of nursing into acute care hospitals in Australia the findings of this study are timely and suggest that unless nursing team members clearly understand their roles and scope of practice there is potential for intra-professional workplace conflict. Furthermore the impact of the conflict may have consequences for both the individual nurse and their patients.

It is widely recognized that every workplace potentially provides a rich source of learning. Studies focusing on health care contexts have shown that social interaction within and between professions is crucial in enabling professionals to learn through work, address problems and cope with challenges of clinical practice. While hospital environments are beginning to be understood in spatial terms, the links between space and interprofessional learning at work have not been explored. This paper draws on Lefebvre's tri-partite theoretical framework of perceived, conceived and lived space to enrich understandings of interprofessional learning on an acute care ward in an Australian teaching hospital. Qualitative analysis was undertaken using data from observations of Registered Nurses at work and semi-structured interviews linked to observed events. The paper focuses on a ward round, the medical workroom and the Registrar's room, comparing and contrasting the intended (conceived), practiced (perceived) and pedagogically experienced (lived) spatial dimensions. The paper concludes that spatial theory has much to offer understandings of interprofessional learning in work, and the features of work environments and daily practices that produce spaces that enable or constrain learning.

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