During June, Viv Bennett and her colleagues at the Department of Health (DH) held a week of action Health Improvement and Health Promoting Practitioners. This involved visits to a number of clinical areas. Here, David Foster, Deputy Director of Nursing and Midwifery Advisor at the DH, has kindly agreed to share his blog with us as he reflects on his visit with Liz Alderton, a district nurse and Queen’s Nurse at the North East London NHS Foundation Trust.