Nurses Registration Act 1919

Nurses Registration Act 1919
Act of Parliament
Long titleAn Act to provide for the Registration of Nurses for the Sick.
Citation9 & 10 Geo. 5. c. 94
Dates
Royal assent23 December 1919
Other legislation
Relates to

The Nurses Registration Act 1919 (9 & 10 Geo. 5. c. 94) was an Act of Parliament of the United Kingdom.

It set up the General Nursing Council, and was the culmination of a long campaign led by Ethel Gordon Fenwick to establish a register of nurses.

There was a general register for all those trained in general nursing, and supplementary registers for mental nursing, mental deficiency nursing, fever nursing, paediatric nursing, and for male nurses[1] There was no mechanism for a nurse to transfer from one part of the register to another without re-qualifying.

Nurses were to be admitted to the register if they had, for three years before 1 November 1919, been bona fide engaged in practice and had adequate knowledge and experience of the nursing of the sick.[2]

  1. ^ "The Nurses Registration Act 1919". Policy Navigator. Health Foundation. Retrieved 6 June 2017.
  2. ^ Abel-Smith, Brian (1960). A History of the Nursing Profession. London: Heinemann. p. 100.