Community Nursing and Primary Healthcare in Twentieth-Century Britain (Routledge Studies in the Social History of Medicine)



This book takes a fresh look at community nursing history in Great Britain, examining the essentially generalist and low profile, domiciliary end of the professional nursing spectrum throughout the twentieth century. It charts the most significant changes affecting the nurse’s work on the district including compulsory registration for general nursing, changes in organization, training, conditions of service, and workload. A strong oral history component provides a unique insight into the professional images of district nursing and the complexities of inter- and intra-professional relationships as well as into the changing day-to-day working experiences of the district nurse at ‘grass-roots’ level. Use of oral history and records of individual nurses attempts to rectify the tendency of nursing history to view nurses as if they were a homogenous group of professionals, thereby recognizing the different experiences of nurses in different regions and environments. The book also considers the degree of influence of medically related technologies and of developments in drugs, materials, communications, and transport on the professional development of district nursing. The work addresses issues of gender relationships central to a nursing profession largely composed of women (throughout much of the period) working alongside a largely male-dominated medical profession.
Table of contents : 
Book Cover......Page 1
Title......Page 6
Copyright......Page 7
Contents......Page 8
List of Figures......Page 10
Preface......Page 12
Acknowledgments......Page 14
Glossary and Conventions......Page 16
Introduction......Page 18
Part I: The History of District Nursing......Page 32
1 Historical Trajectories: Background, c. 1850–1919......Page 34
2 What Became of the Lady? The Interwar Period, 1919–1939......Page 52
3 War to Welfare State, 1939–1948......Page 80
4 Changing Places, 1948–1979......Page 98
Part II: Themes and Issues......Page 122
5 Town Nurse, Country Nurse: District Nursing Landscape......Page 124
6 Technology, Treatment, and TLC......Page 152
7 Generalists and Generals: District Nursing Professionalisation......Page 168
8 Language of Caring: Care and Nurses’ Lives......Page 182
9 Portraits of a District Nurse......Page 204
10 Discussion and Conclusion......Page 218
Endnotes......Page 232
Sources and Bibliography......Page 262
Index......Page 278