Unhappiness about the levels of pay received by nurses, especially students, and their attempts to improve them via the administrative machinery of the time hit the headlines in the summer of 1948.
The NHS had been in existence for barely a month by the time Nursing Times published its issue, dated 7 August, but the state of the new service itself was barely mentioned in that week’s issue. Instead, the lead article focused on what the NHS meant for nursing pay and related workforce issues, some of which chime with those of today.
At the same time as the NHS was created, so-called Whitley councils were also established for nursing to negotiate salary levels and conditions of service. Similar Whitley councils – comprising employers and unions – were already in place for many other professions and industries, having been introduced from 1919 onwards to negotiate on pay.
One of the first problems facing the new councils for nursing was a grievance from a group of London student nurses that their real-terms pay had, in fact, gone down after formation of the NHS. At the time, student nurses were not considered supernumerary and received a wage while undergoing their training in hospitals. As a result, after 5 July 1948, they found themselves having to make National Insurance contributions like other employees, following the passing of legislation to pay for basic social security.
“The unpleasant fact of a reduction in their actual pay has roused the student nurses to protest,” wrote Marjorie Wenger, then editor of Nursing Times.
“They have a great weight of sympathy behind them from the public, whose feelings are easily stirred where nurses are concerned,” she noted.
Ultimately, she said nurses could threaten to resign, but warned that this was an “extremely serious” move for students, who were required to undertake a continuous period of training before qualifying. But Ms Wenger began her article with a statement that could, unfortunately, probably apply to any period of nursing’s history but certainly has strong echoes for today: “That all is not well with the conditions and salaries of nurses in this country, and elsewhere, has been realised by members of the profession for a long time,” she said.
In the same article, Ms Wenger also discussed a working party report, commissioned by the government and published earlier that year, on nurse recruitment and training. The report had faced criticism, she noted, for focusing too much on recruitment and training, and not enough on the retention of existing nurses – again, not too dissimilar to many modern-day workforce policies.
Elsewhere, the 7 August 1948 issue featured the runner-up of an essay competition for student nurses and followed the apparently successful treatment of a young woman called Joan. The essay, called ‘Thoracoplasty in the treatment of pulmonary tuberculosis,’ was by SA Evans from St Helier Hospital, which was then in Surrey.
Separately, a consultant psychiatrist had written a guide for nurses on managing human relationships in hospital. It explored the relationship of the nurse with their colleagues and peers, tutor or supervisor, and their patients.
“The young nurse has to learn to practise the spirit of compromise, to respect other points of view and yet maintain her own beliefs and standards,” wrote Dr Northage Mather.
With recent tennis at Wimbledon in mind, the issue also included a report on a semi-final in the now sadly defunct Nursing Times tennis championship. On the “hottest day for years”, nurses from Middlesex Hospital and St George’s Hospital played on the “beautiful court” at Brompton Hospital. Middlesex eventually prevailed, going through to play in the final later in the year against St Thomas’ Hospital. The prestige of the event is clearly demonstrated by the fact that it was umpired by members of the Lawn Tennis Umpires Association of Great Britain.
Meanwhile, another article by E Harper looked at poisonous plants in the countryside and the need to teach children about them, in the wake of several fatal cases reported in the newspapers. Foxglove, bryony, aconite, ground ivy, wood sorrel, hellebore and traveller’s joy were all featured in the piece as being poisonous, as was the yew tree. You have been warned.
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