Report of the Working Party on the Recruitment and Training of Nurses.

Date:
1947
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Report of the Working Party on the Recruitment and Training of Nurses. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    23/132 (page 15)
    & 42. It may be convenient at this point to consider what is the best age, if there is a best age, for entering nurse training. The answer to this question should ideally be based on facts showing at which ages candidates are likely to respond best to training and to become effective nurses. With the information now available it is impossible to deal with the problem in this way, but it may assist to give the arguments for and against entering nurse training at different ages. 43. One view is that girls should be encouraged to enter nursing when they reach the age of 18 years. In the past about 20 per cent. seem to have entered at this age, and this proportion is likely to increase. It is true that young persons are relatively immature at this age: they cannot have the wide experience of life which would make them better fitted to undertake responsible duties with patients who are seriously ill or to handle relatives of patients with the necessary tact. But in no profession are new entrants expected to have the “ ripeness” only attainable after many years of experience, and we see no reason why nursing should be an exception. It is surely not reasonable to demand that a newly qualified nurse, at whatever age she qualifies, should have acquired the outlook and attitude found in a nurse of many years’ standing. What we should rather seek is a candidate who, after qualifying, will profit from, and develop further 44, A student nurse properly selected, who enters training at 18 and becomes qualified at 21 can, in the course of the next five years or so, acquire confidence and skill in dealing with the multiplicity of tasks which she will encounter. A person, however, who enters nurse training in the later twenties will already have lost perhaps 8 or 10 years which she might have devoted to nursing had she begun earlier. When she reaches the same age, therefore, her colleague who began at 18 may have some advantage. On the other hand the late entrant will have the counterbalancing advantage of wider general experience. However this may be, since almost 50 per cent. of the profession entered nursing before they reached the age of 20, we must regard these younger candidates as the main source of future supply. Taking all into account, it would seem that candidates should be accepted at the age of 18 years, though not younger, perhaps, but every encouragement should also be given to candidates of more mature years. Nor should any obstacle be put in the way of candidates who are married. 45. Nursing qualifications. About 57 per cent. of the nursing staffs of the hospitals in Great Britain are either students, pupils, assistant or other nurses without the qualifications enumerated in items 1 to 7 of Table X. Some 13 per other qualifications in addition to that of State Registered Nurse, some two-thirds of these being State Certified Midwives. Rather more than 2 per cent. are on one or more of the Supplementary Registers of the General Nursing Councils. 1 in 200 is a State Certified Midwife with or without a supplementary or other qualification, but without general registration. 46. On the whole there is little difference between England and Wales on the one hand and Scotland on the other in the proportions of nurses, in non-mental hospitals, with particular qualifications. In Scottish hospitals the proportion of *“ S.R.N. only ” is 5 per cent. less than in England and Wales, but the proportion to be in Scottish hospitals a rather smaller proportion of trained nurses who are State Certified Midwives—about 10 per cent. as compared with 13 per cent. in England and Wales. 15