Recruitment, retention and representation of nurses: an historical perspective

To demonstrate how an appreciation of the history of nursing can help towards an understanding of present problems and provide signposts for the future and to consider the recruitment of nurses in the context of their social and economic status past and present.

In the twenty-first century, nursing has been subject to the gaze of the press and commentators evoking a lost golden age. A golden age when wonderful care was given by ideal young women and standards were upheld by matrons. History demonstrates that recruitment to nursing and their education has been the subject of comment by press and public through the twentieth century.

Sources consulted: Newspaper articles commentating on contemporary nursing, secondary works on history of nursing, archival sources, government reports and historical journals and oral histories.

Analysis of archival sources and oral sources. Interrogating them against the historiography and building up the interconnectedness of what they reveal.

Flawed but nevertheless influential reports led to a misrepresentation of nursing based on misconceptions rather than on evidence. The blame was laid, unfairly, on the system of nurse education and senior nurses. What lay at the heart of the recruitment crises was that demand for registered nurses exceeded supply.

Commentators then as now tried to find simplistic answers rather than consider a range of factors contributing to the shortage of nursing. IMPLICATIONS FOR CONTEMPORARY PRACTICE/RELEVANCE TO CLINICAL PRACTICE: Nursing continues to compete in an overcrowded labour market. New approaches to recruitment have, contrary to popular perception, been successful in attracting outside its traditional labour pool. Having an awareness of the influences that have shaped the present can help nurses respond to polemic and misinformed opinion.