Over the last 100 years the developments within surgery have been unbelievable. From open heart surgery to total hip replacements.

 

The one thing that has to be remembered is that, as well as the developments within surgery; there have been innumerable advances within the pre and post-operative care of the patient on the wards.

 

At the start of the 1900`s, hospitals were more like work houses. Large, dark wards with 30 - 40 beds. Most of the instrumentation and ward accessories were made of stainless steel or glass, hospital beds were still at shin height to most nurses who still wore starched aprons and Sister Dora caps and lived in fear of ‘Matron’.

 

The consultants rounds were not an opportunity for the patients to discuss their situation, they were for the consultant to instruct his `minions` what he wanted doing, the patient only spoke when spoken to.

 

By today's standards, the treatment available on the hospital wards of the early 1900’s left a lot to be desired. There was no such thing as antibiotics, i.e. penicillin. This made the treatment of such things as chest infections and viral infections hard if not almost impossible. Add to this the risk of cross-infection that was rife in the nightingale style wards and you had a recipe against which the nurses and doctors had an up-hill struggle.

 

This situation was made even harder by the general ‘health of the nation’, which was still, somewhat, in the dark ages. Public sanitation left a lot to be desired and with the intervention of world war i the situation was only made harder for the already over-stretched nursing and medical staff.

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If we take a look at some of the nursing procedures that were taking place at this time and compare them with present day equivalent routines it is possible to realise how much nursing and medicine has changed.

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‘People are apt to think that … all who are smitten with disease should be transferred to the proper hospitals and tended there. To attempt to cure them by any other means must result in sheer waste of time, labour and money…’
William Rathbone ‘The History & Progress of District Nursing’ 1890
Taken from ‘The Birth of District Nursing in Liverpool’
By Rosemary Cook

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So, why was nursing in the home deemed necessary and what part did Liverpool play?

Conditions – chronic, incurable better treated at home

Choice – people did not want to be removed from home

Capacity – not enough hospitals to treat all

Cost – ‘work done by District Nurses is, in proportion to its results, far less costly than that done by hospitals’

Liverpool was divided into 18 districts coterminous with parishes, for co-operation with clergy each district supervised by Lady Superintendent Nurse allocated to district ‘district nursing’ was born

Developments in Liverpool included: -

1897 – proceeds of City Fund £23,000 during office of Sir Thomas Hughes as Lord Mayor

David Lewis Trustees offer to build new Central Home and District Home – up to £10,000

Formed Liverpool Queen Victoria District Nursing Association

The charity originates in 1887 with the grant by Queen Victoria from the Women’s Jubilee Fund. A Royal Charter in 1889 changed its name to ‘The Queen Victoria Jubilee Institute for Nurses’

The objectives were providing the ‘training, support, maintenance of women to act as nurses for the sick poor and the establishment...of a home or homes for nurses and generally the promotion and provision of improved means of nursing the sick poor.’
 

William Rathbone secured the money for district nursing. A new national charity to co-ordinate standards of district nurse training and organization was formed. The Queen was patron of the charity, a tradition that has been continued to this day.
The Council laid down the conditions for district nursing associations, which included the qualifications and organisation of Queen’s Nurses. These included: -
 

• Training at an approved hospital or infirmary for at least a year.

• Approved training in district nursing for at least six months including the nursing of mothers and infants after childbirth.

• Nurses in country districts had to have three months training in midwifery.

• Nurses in large towns were to reside in homes, under the charge of a trained superintendent.

Nursing of patients was to be carried out under direction of medical practitioners, and services were confined to the poor, but did not exclude cases of such patients who were able to make a contribution. Nurses were ‘strictly forbidden to interfere in any way with the religious opinions of patients or members of their families.’

The first Inspector General was Rosalind Paget, a niece of William Rathbone who trained as a nurse herself. She devoted her life to nursing and midwifery, serving as a Council member until 1946 and editing ‘Nursing Notes’, the first nursing journal, for fifty years. In 1934 she was made a Dame for her services to the improvement of midwifery services.

Taken from

http://www.districtnursing150.org.uk/history_qni.htm

The Queen's Nursing Institute

William Rathbone’s influence on Health Care in Liverpool did not end there. His friendship with Florence Nightingale led her to give him the title ‘THE ANGEL OF LIVERPOOL’ because of his progressive attitude and hard work to improve the health of the city.

Part of this work included asking Florence Nightingale to send one of her trained Nurses to Liverpool to work in his Hospital.

Agnes Jones was born in Cambridge but after her father’s death in 1850, she went back to Donegal to look after her sick mother. Agnes knew that she wanted to spend her life looking after other people’s well-being.

Having worked as a Biblical missionary and in a Girls’ Dormitory school in London, in 1862 Agnes enrolled in Florence Nightingale’s nurse training school at St. Thomas’ Hospital after which she took up a position at the Great Northern Hospital in London before moving to Liverpool.

At first she worked in the Liverpool Workhouse Hospital on Brownlow Hill. When that closed she moved to the other Liverpool Workhouse which later became known as Walton Hospital.

Agnes’ contribution to the sick paupers of Liverpool was enormous, and she worked tirelessly to make the experiment a success. However the work took its toll upon her, and at the age of just 35 years of age she died of typhus fever a condition that was prevalent among the poor of Liverpool at this time.

The memory of her outstanding contribution to nursing, to Liverpool and to the poor is commemorated in Liverpool. A window in the Anglican Cathedral is dedicated to her memory, and a statue to her exists in the Cathedral Oratory. However none of these were done with the consent of or with the agreement of her family. The statue was commissioned and paid for entirely by William Rathbone who transferred the title, bestowed upon him by Florence Nightingale, of ‘The Angel of Liverpool’ in recognition of her work.

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