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Our Role in the Rise of District Nursing

Here you see ¾«Æ·¶ÌÊÓ’s founding patron Princess Louise, who, along with our founders Christian Guthrie Wright and Louisa Stevenson, developed the Queen Victoria Jubilee Institute for Nurses. The Jubilee Institute was an entirely voluntary body, which established training and residential facilities. It was the beginning of the district nursing service and was a vital development in the period prior to the creation of the National Health Service.

A portrait of Princess Louise

The institute received a Royal Charter in 1889, which gave it the objectives of 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.’

Our institution's connections with the district nursing movement have remained strong and grown over the years, and today we train district nurses.

A black and white photo of four women on a bench eating lunch and smiling at the camera.

Read more about how district nursing helped to shape our health service.