Jane Brooks

‘The geriatric hospital felt like a backwater’: aspects of older people’s nursing in Britain, 1955–1980

AIMS AND OBJECTIVES The aim of this article is to examine the experiences of ward-level nurses who cared for older people in general hospitals between 1955-1980. BACKGROUND There is very little published on the history of older adult nursing and no recent material from the United Kingdom. There are, however, the works of Cecily Hunter in Australia and Erica Roberts in Canada. It is the intention of this study to contribute to this important area of research. DESIGN This is an oral history project in which 20 nurses who had worked on older adults ward between 1955-1980 were interviewed. METHODS All the interviews were taped, transcribed and data-themed. Ethical clearance for the project was obtained from the University Ethics Committee and all participants were anonymised. RESULTS Many of the nurses found the experience very difficult, though there were exceptions. Several participants had worked on older adults ward during their training and then had never wanted to return. Most described a paucity of resources and longevity of staff on the wards. CONCLUSIONS Using the sociological theory of Erving Goffman, this article introduces a novel method of understanding nursing history, although his ideas have been used in medical history. The value of his theories for this study is in the identification of nurses as being part of the same system as the patients themselves. IMPLICATIONS FOR CONTEMPORARY POLICY, RESEARCH AND/OR PRACTICE: For nurses to care effectively for their patients, nurses themselves must be valued. Subordination and regimentation tend to dehumanise the carers which, in turn, dehumanises the cared for.

Dress and distinction in nursing, 1860-1939: "A corporate (as well as corporeal) armour of probity and purity

This article considers the uniform and uniform rules which formed an important part of the ‘reformed nurse’ in the latter years of the nineteenth century and remained central to the concept of the nurse in the twentieth. It will be shown that the rules and regulations of nurses’ garb continued long after the rules for women’s dress in general had relaxed. These dress codes were used by the reformers of nursing to provide a ‘space’ between the ‘new or reformed nurse’ and her morally suspect predecessor, the Sairey Gamp figure in Charles Dickens’s Martin Chuzzlewit. The nurses’ garb was created to provide a common identity for the profession at a time of rapid social change. But within this context it also represented its distinctiveness; uniform was a metaphor for the class divisions and symbolic fractures within the profession.

The first undergraduate nursing students: A quantitative historical study of the Edinburgh degrees, 1960–1985

AIMS The aim of this article is to examine the experiences of the first 25 years of undergraduate nurses at the University of Edinburgh using a quantitative historical methodology. BACKGROUND In 1960, the University of Edinburgh, Nursing Studies Unit commenced the first undergraduate degree with nursing in the United Kingdom. By 1967, nursing was a component of the academic award itself. METHODS A questionnaire was sent to 225 graduates of nursing at the University of Edinburgh through the alumni office. The questionnaire combined biographical data and a Likert scale. DATA/RESULTS Quantitative data can provide the historian with wide-ranging information about large groups of people, in this case undergraduate nurses. Although some of the responses may be more positive than what the participants felt at the time, the material provides useful information as to the experiences of early undergraduate nurses. CONCLUSION This article has generated a previously unknown material related to the experiences of the early undergraduate nurses at Edinburgh. For example, the respondents did not feel that the course was too difficult and it appears that the University was accepting nursing as an academic subject. The additional qualitative data provided by the respondents has offered potential for further study.

Not only with thy hands, But Also with Thy Minds: Salvaging Psychologically Damaged Soldiers in the Second World War.

This essay breaks new ground in exploring the tensions in female nursing during the Second World War as the mental health needs of the injured were increasingly acknowledged. Advances in weaponry and transportation meant that the Second World War was a truly global war with mobile troops and enhanced capacity to maim and kill. A critical mass of female nursing sisters was posted to provide care for physical trauma, yet the nature of this uniquely modern war also required nurses to provide psychological support for troops readying for return to action. Most nursing sisters of the British Army had little or no mental health training, but there were trained male mental health nurses available. Publications of broadcasts by the Matron-in-Chief of the British Army Nursing Service detail the belief that the female nurse was the officer in charge of the ward when the patients had physical needs. However, that the nursing sister held this position when the patients’ requirements were of a psychological nature was at times tested and contested. Through personal testimony and contemporary accounts in the nursing and medical press, this essay investigates how female nursing staff negotiated their position as the expert by the psychologically damaged combatants’ bedside. The essay identifies the resourcefulness of nurses to ensure access to all patient groups and also their determination to move the boundaries of their professional work to support soldiers in need.

Fitting the message to the location: engaging adults with antimicrobial resistance in a World War 2 air raid shelter

There are many different initiatives, global and local, designed to raise awareness of antimicrobial resistance (AMR) and change audience behaviour. However, it is not possible to assess the impact of specific, small‐scale events on national and international outcomes—although one might acknowledge some contribution to the individual and collective knowledge and experience‐focused ‘science capital’ As with any research, in preparation for a public engagement event, it is important to identify aims, and appropriate methods whose results might help satisfy those aims. Therefore, the aim of this paper was to develop, deliver and evaluate an event designed to engage an adult audience with AMR.

Nursing typhus victims in the Second World War, 1942-1944: a discussion paper.

AIMS This article explores the care British nurses provided to victims of typhus during the Second World War. BACKGROUND Typhus is associated with poverty and overcrowding. During wars in the pre-antibiotic era, civilians were particularly susceptible to epidemics, which military governments feared would spread to their troops. DESIGN This discussion paper draws on archival data from three typhus epidemics in the Second World War to examine the expert work of British nurses in caring for victims during these potential public health disasters. DATA SOURCES The published sources for the paper include material from nursing and medical journals published between 1940-1947. Archival sources come from the National Archives in Kew, the Wellcome Library and the Army Medical Services Museum, between 1943-1945. Of particular interest is the correspondence with Dame Katharine Jones from nurses on active service overseas. IMPLICATIONS FOR NURSING Whilst epidemics of typhus are now rare, nurses in the present day may be required to care for the public in environments of extreme poverty and overcrowding, where life-threatening infectious diseases are prevalent. This article has demonstrated that it is possible for expert and compassionate nursing to alleviate suffering and prevent death, even when medical technologies are unavailable. CONCLUSION Expert and compassionate care, adequate nutrition and hydration and attention to hygiene needs are crucial when there are limited pharmacological treatments and medical technologies available to treat infectious diseases. The appreciation of this could have implications for nurses working in current global conflicts.

SUSAN McGANN, ANNE CROWTHER & RONA DOUGALL, The History of the Royal College of Nursing, 1916–90: a voice for nurses

As an organisation, the Royal College of Nursing (RCN) appears to have been beset by a number of contradictions. It is both a professional organisation and associated with the Trades Union Congress (TUC). It is a forward-thinking institution which early on called for equal pay, research-based practice and better working conditions for nurses, but it has always been run by the very people who often prevented such innovations—the matrons of the prestigious London Voluntary Hospitals. This excellent text demonstrates all these contradictions in a heavily empirical and exceedingly well-researched manner, as well as dealing with the timeless concerns for nurses of work, pay and education, as well as gender, class and race. The book is divided into eight chapters in a broadly chronological order. Chapter one considers the foundations of the College of Nursing in 1916. Many of the problems for the College originated from this time. It desired to be a voice for the nursing profession, but was accused of elitism and from the very outset it found itself in the middle of a battle between the registrationists and anti-registrationists, the medical profession and the government of the day. Chapter two examines the phase of consolidation in the interwar period. The College at this time established itself as an important organisation, with Royal patronage, but it remained associated with the leaders of the profession. The disparity between the desires of the middle-class matrons and the largely workingclass nursing workforce appeared insurmountable: questions of working hours and pay were key to these differing standpoints. Chapter three explores the 1930s to World War II. It considers the preparations for war and the National Health Service (NHS), which enhanced the position of the nursing profession but also gave rise to some loss of status, most particularly because of the institution of the assistant nurse and also the lack of a nursing voice in the developments of the NHS. Both matters were of great concern to the College. Women’s History Review Vol. 21, No. 4, September 2012, pp. 679–689