FOR 125 years, Oxford has been home to world-class training for those who look after us of us in our hours of need.

Care and dignity, compassion and diligence – those are the qualities that all nurses trained in the city have carried with them for more than a century.

It’s a difficult job, a tiring job, and today marks the beginning of celebrations to honour Oxford’s longstanding role in shaping the heroes who prop up our hospitals, our hospices, our surgeries, our schools, our care homes and ultimately our communities.

Non-regulated training, the early beginnings of a formal nurse education, first started in 1891 at the Radcliffe Infirmary in Woodstock Road.

It was almost 100 years later, in 1989, that Oxford Brookes University first offered a nursing degree in partnership with what is now the Oxford University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust.

Head of Nursing at Oxford Brookes, Dr Liz Westcott, said that Oxford had led the way in terms of nursing education for many years.

She said: “There is so much rich history from this time and key developments, for example, in 1941 the first dose of penicillin was given intravenously in Oxford to a man at the Radcliffe Infirmary.

“Perhaps most importantly for us, in the mid-1980s discussions were first had about the future development of a nursing degree for Oxford, and the transfer of nursing education from the NHS into higher education.

“This decision was considered a watershed moment as it placed Oxford ahead of most other nursing education centres in England by opting for degree-level education.”

Dr Westcott, who started her nursing career in 1978 at the Radcliffe Infirmary, said technology had changed but that the core principles of nursing remained the same.

She said: “The essence of nursing will always be the same; to care for people when they are in most need and to be there to offer care, support and education.

“Technology has changed immeasurably and people have more access now to information about their conditions than ever before but nurses are still there to support, reassure and guide people and lead teams.”

The chief nurse of Public Health England, Professor Viv Bennett CBE, trained at Oxford Polytechnic – now Oxford Brookes – and praised the role it played in her career.

She said: “I have always been proud to say ‘I trained in Oxford’. Here I learned the science and art of nursing and public health nursing – in part from my lecturers and books and in huge part from patients, families and colleagues.”

Under the government’s spending review, grants for student nurses could be scrapped in favour of student loans.

Along with this the cap on the number of nurses being able to train each year could also be abolished, with the government arguing for an extra 10,000 training places to be created.

Dr Westcott said: “I have always loved sharing knowledge with nurses and this role is a great way to influence the next generation of nurses and to ensure they share the same values that nurses have always held.

“We are on the brink of one of the biggest changes in nurse education with the introduction of student loans and it’s an exciting time to be planning for the future.”

Oxford Mail:

  • A group of student nurses in the 1960s

MEMOIRS

THE memoirs of nurses who trained in the 1940s during the war years have been collected as part of the 125-year celebrations:

* The nurses were not allowed to marry during their training, no men were allowed into their rooms and they were not allowed to go to the local pubs or dance halls. However on VE night they were allowed out without a pass.
* One nurse remembers being assigned to the theatres at the Churchill Hospital. She had a talent for drawing and was asked by the surgeon to draw his operations as there was a scarcity of cameras after the war.
* The work was hard, the hours long. Patients were washed, fed and beds made by 10am prior to doctors and matrons rounds. There were no bed screens, the screens were wooden and had no wheels so had to be manhandled into place. The wards were cold and nurses had to fill stone hot water bottles.
* The uniform was a wartime utility green dress with no cuffs or starched collars. Dresses were worn for a week and a clean apron was used daily. The dress had to come below the knee and there were different linen caps to differentiate the year groups.
* Radcliffe Infirmary motto at the time: ‘Patient first, self last and no task beneath us if it is for the patient’s benefit.’

UPCOMING EVENTS

* Today, 6pm: 125 years celebrations inaugural lecture – Professor Brendan McCormack: Capturing the energy within – the future of landscape nurse education.
* February 25: Lecture, Professor Kim Usher: A Celebration of mental health nursing highlighting some key developments over the past four decades.
* April 23: Fun walk/run event at Harcourt Hill Oxford and Swindon
* May 11: International nurses week – a series of debates, lectures and hospital tours to pay tribute to the work of nurses. 
* May 21, noon: Celebration lunch open to all at Oxford Brookes Restaurant
* October 18, Christ Church Cathedral: Annual St Frideswide Civic Cathedral service
* December: Future of Nursing debate
* For more lectures, debates and other events, go to nursing.brookes.ac.uk/125-years