Celebrating 13 Decades of Nurse Education 125 YEARS of NURSE EDUCATION in OXFORD

Celebrating 13 decades of nurse education 125 YEARS OF NURSE EDUCATION IN OXFORD Welcome to the 125 Years of Nurse Education in Oxford celebration booklet ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS We wish to thank the following This booklet details the last 13 decades of nurse people or organisations for their education in Oxford and Swindon. We are grateful help in compiling this booklet: to the people who have taken time to share their experiences of nurse education. DESIGNER ■ Flora Hands, Carline Creative The training and education of health care professionals has long been a cornerstone of life in Oxford and in AUTHORS the 20th and 21st Centuries Oxford Brookes University ■ Xante Cummings has played its own vital role in working with local ■ Annie Thompson-Lynch partners to provide professional healthcare education. ■ Dr Liz Westcott Nurse training in Oxford can trace its beginnings back to 1782. Then a non-regulated training, the early THE RADCLIFFE GUILD OF NURSES – beginnings of a formal nurse education, started in 1891 PERSONAL REMINISCENCES FROM: at the Radcliffe Infirmary on Woodstock Road. ■ Rita Bayley The records, many of which we have accessed to write ■ Theresa Bentley this booklet, provide a fascinating history. Between ■ Sue Bradshaw 1921 and 1991, 7948 nurses’ names were recorded. ■ Nurse training continued at the Radcliffe Infirmary and Nicky Brennan in 1979 the John Radcliffe 2 site was opened and the ■ Anne Carter ‘The School of Nursing’ transferred to this new site. ■ Mary Campbell In the mid 1980s Malcolm Ross, then Chief Nursing ■ Mary Dickman Officer in Oxford, Pam Jones the Head of Nursing ■ June Fisher Education in Oxford entered into discussions with ■ Eileen Forbes the then Vice Chancellor, Clive Booth and senior staff ■ at Oxford Polytechnic. In 1989 this resulted with the Isobel Gilles traditional RGN training being replaced by a 4-year ■ Anne Green degree in nursing and the School of Health Care came ■ Ann Pollard into existence at the Oxford Polytechnic, now Oxford ■ Joan Tree Brookes University. In 1999 a campus was opened in Ferndale, Swindon and an Adult Nursing programme ■ Pat Wilson was introduced, with Operating Department Practice ■ Joan Winch following shortly after. ■ Viv Wightman In 2004 we were brought together from our 12 sites OTHER CONTRIBUTORS across Oxford to the newly acquired Milham Ford Girls ■ Graham Carter, Editor, Swindon Heritage School in Marston. At last the health and social work programmes were all on a site together. Health Care ■ Dr Ann Ewens, Oxford Brookes University and Social Work joined with Biological and Medical ■ Rachel Skittrall, Oxford Brookes University Sciences and Psychology in 2011 to become The ■ Robyn Thompson-Vango, Faculty of Health and Life Sciences. Oxford Brookes University We hope you enjoy reading about our nursing history ■ Jeffrey Wright, The Oxford Health Archive and we look forward to seeing you at the many events being organised during the year, please see page 38 for our celebration calendar. COVER PICTURES CLOCKWISE: Drawing by Coen Littleford, age 8; 1960s nurse dining room; Student nurse, Oxford Brookes University; 1930s nurse sitting room; Oxford University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust 2 | OXFORD BROOKES UNIVERSITY Contents Introduction, Professor June Girvin 4 1869-99 6 1900-09 8 1910-19 10 1920-29 12 Little people, big talent 14 1930-39 16 1940-49 18 Oxford nurses work across the globe 21 1950-59 22 1960-69 24 1970-79 26 1980-89 28 Swindon’s medical heritage 30 1990-99 32 2000-16 34 Back in the day 36 Programme of events 38 Sources 39 www.brookes.ac.uk | 3 125 YEARS OF NURSE EDUCATION IN OXFORD Celebrating 125 Years of Nurse Education in Oxford The anniversary of 125 years conditions and of nurse education Oxford facilitating patients and carers through is a fantastic opportunity to the increasing celebrate everything that was, complexity of is, and will be, nursing. services. A digital expert, able to As the leader of a Faculty of Health and Life monitor and Sciences that educates future nurses as well as support remotely, other health care professionals and biological engaging with scientists the chance to recall our past, reflect higher education for other professionals and on our present and project our future in nurse colleagues and developing clinical academic education couldn’t be more appropriate. roles that push the boundaries of nursing care through research and innovation. Caring in highly Nursing is one of those professions that everyone technical and/or community scenarios and thinks they know about and the fondness that the bringing compassion and warmth to both. general population have for nurses is recognised and appreciated. Since the start of nurse education It is already a very challenging health care world for in Oxford 125 years ago people have expected nurses and will continue to be challenging, exciting warmth, compassion, kindness and a reassurance and rewarding in equal measure. Educating nurses of safety. These remain key attributes of today’s is the best way to ensure the resilience that retains nurses and will be key attributes into the future. kindness and compassion, enhance the knowledge What has changed almost unimaginably in that base that produces flexibility, competence and 125 years is the scope of a nurse’s practice. safety, and develop the confidence that leads to excellent clinical judgment and accountability. From fetching and carrying, following Dr’s orders, and interminable cleaning (which I remember The world-class health care services and the as late as the 1970s) today’s nurses are more extraordinary academic environment that Oxford likely to be assessing patients and instigating offers provides our student nurses with a unique care and treatment, prescribing medication, learning experience that prepares them to face facilitating a multi-disciplinary – and often that challenging, exciting and rewarding future multiagency – team, educating patients and with skill and knowledge, underpinned, as carers, supervising students, and undertaking always, by kindness, compassion and warmth. their own research into areas of clinical need. All It is my very great privilege to be a part of the past, combined with those key attributes of warmth, present and future of nursing education in Oxford. compassion, kindness, efficiency and safety. The future will bring even more changes to that PROFESSOR JUNE GIRVIN scope of practice – the nurse as independent PRO VICE CHANCELLOR AND DEAN, consultant, gateway to services, deliverer of complex FACULTY HEALTH AND LIFE SCIENCES, care, collaborator with expert patients co-producing OXFORD BROOKES UNIVERSITY care packages with those who have long-term 4 | OXFORD BROOKES UNIVERSITY Professor Viv Bennett CBE CHIEF NURSE, PUBLIC HEALTH ENGLAND I trained as a nurse and health visitor at the earlier versions of Oxford Brookes (Oxford School of Nursing and Oxford Polytechnic) and I have always been proud to say ‘I trained in Oxford’. In Oxford I learned the science and art of nursing and public health nursing - in part from my lecturers and books (in those days books!) and in huge part from patients, families and colleagues. I remember clearly as a student nursing Mr B an elderly ‘gentleman’ in every sense of the word who taught me about the importance of ‘know my story-know me’ and of maintaining the dignity of a dignified Professor Viv Bennett CBE as a student nurse man. Of two babies, the birth of one and death of the other, who showed me the privilege of nursing I remember clearly as a at the best of times and the worst of times for families. A surgeon who gave me confidence and student nursing Mr B an helped me be competent in theatre, and a family with two children with disabilities and extreme elderly ‘gentleman’ in social disadvantage who showed me the courage every sense of the word that families show in adversity and taught me to be a much better health visitor. who taught me about the In Oxford I first became interested in public importance of ‘know my health and children’s services which has lasted throughout my career. story-know me’ Student nurses, 1970s www.brookes.ac.uk | 5 125 YEARS OF NURSE EDUCATION IN OXFORD 1861-65 1863 American Civil War First section of the London between the Union and Underground opens 1860-99 seceding Confederacy 1877 1879 1880-81 1881 Thomas Edison invents the Thomas Edison tests his The First Boer War First electrical power plant and phonograph first light bulb. grid in Godalming, Britain OXFORD’S FIRST HOSPITAL Nursing is one of the oldest Oxford’s first hospital, the Radcliffe Infirmary, had opened occupations associated with in 1770, but for much of the 100 years that followed it was beset by problems, not least of which was the lack of will to care of the sick. It was first develop any form of meaningful training for nurses. Though mentioned, as a recognisable there was some bedside teaching for doctors there was role, during the height of the nothing for nurses. Even as late as the 1870s the house surgeon described the nurses as ‘kind, intelligent, simple Roman Empire, around 300 A.D. women of the superior servant class, without any pretension to being ladies’. This was a period when one woman was in For many centuries that charge of each ward and doing all the nursing and cleaning, followed however, though including fetching the coal and lighting the fire. At night one both men and women were nurse, untrained, looked after the whole hospital. employed in a wide diversity 1857 of nursing situations, For nurses at this time hours were undoubtedly very long little is known about their Louis Pasteur and pay and conditions poor. It is also likely that few taking daily work, learning or identifies the role of nurse, a role synonymous with that of servant, experience.

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