The event is an opportunity to gather to pause, reflect, and rededicate ourselves to the professions in the 203rd anniversary year of Florence Nightingale’s birth on 12th May 1820. We give thanks to all nurses and midwives everywhere as they support health systems to recover and rebuild following the Covid-19 pandemic. Florence inherited a liberal-humanitarian outlook from both sides of her family. [7] Her parents were William Edward Nightingale, born William Edward Shore (1794–1874) and Frances ("Fanny") Nightingale ( née Smith; 1788–1880). William's mother Mary ( née Evans) was the niece of Peter Nightingale, under the terms of whose will William inherited his estate at Lea Hurst, and assumed the name and arms of Nightingale. Fanny's father (Florence's maternal grandfather) was the abolitionist and Unitarian William Smith. [13] Nightingale's father educated her. [12] The Nightingale Pledge is a modified version of the Hippocratic Oath which nurses in the United States recite at their pinning ceremony at the end of training. Created in 1893 and named after Nightingale as the founder of modern nursing, the pledge is a statement of the ethics and principles of the nursing profession. [104] Until her death, Nightingale encouraged the development in nursing in Britain and abroad. The main reason we remember her is that she did a lot of work educating people about the importance of keeping hospitals clean and free from infection, and this work is carried on today in modern hospitals. Cassandra" protests the over-feminisation of women into near helplessness, such as Nightingale saw in her mother's and older sister's lethargic lifestyle, despite their education. She rejected their life of thoughtless comfort for the world of social service. The work also reflects her fear of her ideas being ineffective, as were Cassandra's. Cassandra was a princess of Troy who served as a priestess in the temple of Apollo during the Trojan War. The god gave her the gift of prophecy; when she refused his advances, he cursed her so that her prophetic warnings would go unheeded. Elaine Showalter called Nightingale's writing "a major text of English feminism, a link between Wollstonecraft and Woolf". [91] Nightingale was initially reluctant to join the Women's Suffrage Society when asked by John Stuart Mill, but through Josephine Butler was convinced 'that women's enfranchisement is absolutely essential to a nation if moral and social progress is to be made'. [92]

Nightingale also had “considerable skills in organising, leading and administration,” says Anne Marie, which allowed her to oversee Scutari Hospital and improve conditions. One of the first challenges on arrival in Crimea was finding supplies such as bed linen, nightshirts, bandages and food: “The supply chain was deficient, a bit like us trying to wrangle PPE from the government.”

These early nurses also had a wide range of skills, including being “competent to cook food and curries, clever in bathing or washing a patient, well conversant in rubbing or pressing the limbs, or raising the patient or assisting him in walking or moving about, well-skilled in making or cleaning beds, competent to pound drugs, or ready, patient, and skilful in waiting upon one that is ailing.” Compare the life and work of Florence Nightingale to someone from a different time, Edith Cavell, famous nurse during the First World War. Nightingale underwent the first of several experiences that she believed were calls from God in February1837 while at Embley Park, prompting a strong desire to devote her life to the service of others. In her youth she was respectful of her family's opposition to her working as a nurse, only announcing her decision to enter the field in 1844. Despite the anger and distress of her mother and sister, she rejected the expected role for a woman of her status to become a wife and mother. Nightingale worked hard to educate herself in the art and science of nursing, in the face of opposition from her family and the restrictive social code for affluent young English women. [15] Painting of Nightingale by Augustus Egg, c.1840s

What is the most rewarding part of being a mental health nurse at Nightingale Hospital? The most rewarding part is seeing the patient progress and knowing I had a part in the recovery. Also when a patient can admit they have improved, without the help of the team. Nightingale wrote Notes on Nursing (1859). The book served as the cornerstone of the curriculum at the Nightingale School and other nursing schools, though it was written specifically for the education of those nursing at home. Nightingale wrote, "Every day sanitary knowledge, or the knowledge of nursing, or in other words, of how to put the constitution in such a state as that it will have no disease, or that it can recover from disease, takes a higher place. It is recognised as the knowledge which every one ought to have – distinct from medical knowledge, which only a profession can have". [45] What is the most rewarding part of being a mental health nurse at Nightingale Hospital? The ultimate reward is seeing patients reach their full potential in recovery. I also feel rewarded by working alongside my team members. Patients come to the Nightingale seeking safety and support, and our aim is to ensure patient satisfaction and safety. This would not be possible without our strong and dedicated team. St Camillus de Lellis also led the care of Rome’s victims of the bubonic plague and became concerned with care of those at the end of life. I watched a quiz show recently, where contestants were trying to guess a historical figure. All the clues pointed to a nurse who was at Crimea. Everyone guessed Florence Nightingale, but they’d missed a crucial clue, a reference to Kingston, Jamaica. The figure was, of course, Mary Seacole.Why did you want to become a nurse? I wanted to become a nurse because I would see my mum come home after work and share her experiences with me and the passion and fire she had ignited the passion I now have which is what still drives me at present.

The Nightingale Program is a palliative model of care, provided by specialist nurses and an Occupational Therapist throughout South Australia for advanced dementia care. Despite being named as a Unitarian in several older sources, Nightingale's own rare references to conventional Unitarianism are mildly negative. She remained in the Church of England throughout her life, albeit with unorthodox views. Influenced from an early age by the Wesleyan tradition, [f] Nightingale felt that genuine religion should manifest in active care and love for others. [g] She wrote a work of theology: Suggestions for Thought, her own theodicy, which develops her heterodox ideas. Nightingale questioned the goodness of a God who would condemn souls to hell and was a believer in universal reconciliation – the concept that even those who die without being saved will eventually make it to heaven. [h] She would sometimes comfort those in her care with this view. For example, a dying young prostitute being tended by Nightingale was concerned she was going to hell and said to her "Pray God, that you may never be in the despair I am in at this time". The nurse replied "Oh, my girl, are you not now more merciful than the God you think you are going to? Yet the real God is far more merciful than any human creature ever was or can ever imagine." [11] [62] [i] [j] Lytton Strachey was famous for his book debunking 19th-century heroes, Eminent Victorians (1918). Nightingale gets a full chapter, but instead of debunking her, Strachey praised her in a way that raised her national reputation and made her an icon for English feminists of the 1920s and 1930s. [87]

Activity 2 – Florence Nightingale quiz

Avey Bhatia, Chief Nurse at Guy’s and St Thomas’, said: “It was wonderful to see so many of our nurses and midwives recognised for their outstanding work. They should all feel immensely proud of their achievements during such a challenging year. To receive it, nurses and midwives have to provide evidence from their managers, peers and patients of their outstanding practice and how they daily demonstrate the Trust’s values. They also have to complete a programme of academic work accredited by King’s College London.