Developments in Nursing

• Developments in Nursing


  Before the 1800s, hospitals were often dirty places that people associated with death and infection. Florence Nightengale helped change that - by improving hospital hygiene and raising nursing standards
• Florence Nightingale


  Brought a new discipline and professionalism to nursing, which had a very bad reputation at the time
• Florence Nightingale lived


  1820-1910
• Despite opposition from her family, Florence Nightingale studied to become a nurse in 1849
• The Crimean War broke out in 1853-54
• Horror stories emerged about the Barrack Hospital in Scutari, where the British wounded were treated
• Sidney Herbert, who was both the Secretary of War and a friend of her family, asked for Nightingale to go to Scutari and sort out the hospital's nursing care
• The military opposed women nurses, as they were considered a distraction and inferior to male nurses
• Nightingale went to Scutari anyway, with 38 hand-picked nurses
• Nightingale's actions in Scutari

  1. Ensured all wards were clean and hygienic

  2. Ensured water supplies were adequate

  3. Ensured patients were fed properly
• Before Nightingale arrived, the death rate in the hospital stood at 42%
• Two years later, the death rate had fallen to just 2%
• Mary Seacole


  • Nursed in the Crimea
  • Learnt nursing from her mother, who ran a boarding house for soldiers in Jamaica
• Mary Seacole's actions in the Crimean War

  1. Came to England to volunteer as a nurse

  2. Was rejected (possibly on racist grounds)

  3. Went anyway, paying for her own passage

  4. Financed herself by selling goods to the soldiers and travellers

  5. Nursed soldiers on the battlefields

  6. Built the British Hotel - a small group of makeshift buildings that served as a hospital, shop and canteen for the soldiers
• Seacole couldn't find work as a nurse in England after the war and went bankrupt - though she did receive support due to the press interest in her story
• Nightingale


  Used her fame to Change Nursing
• Nightingale published a book, 'Notes on Nursing'


  1859
• Nightingale's book


  • Explained her methods
  • Emphasised the need for hygiene and a professional attitude
  • It was the standard textbook for generations of nurses
• Nightingale's training of nurses

  1. Public raised £44,000 to help her

  2. She set up the Nightingale School of Nursing in St Thomas' Hospital, London

  3. Nurses were given three years of training before they could qualify

  4. Discipline and attention to detail were important
• By 1900 there were 64,000 trained nurses in Britain from colleges across the country
• Nurses Registration Act was passed, making training compulsory for all nurses

  1919
• The 1800s saw a massive increase in hospital building
• Hospitals became cleaner and more specialist, catering for rich patients as well as the poor
• Florence Nightingale


  Credited with helping turn nursing into a respectable profession, particularly for women
• The Royal College of Nursing was founded


  1916
• The Royal College of Nursing began to admit men in 1960
• Comment and Analysis


  The Germ Theory wasn’t published until 1861, so initially Florence Nightingale didn’t know what the cause of disease was - she believed in the miasma theory. But her teachings suggested good hygiene could prevent the spread of disease