Mental Health Nursing

Anne Borsay is Professor of Healthcare and Medical Humanities in the College of Human and Health Sciences at Swansea UniversityPamela Dale is an Honorary University Fellow at the University of Exeter

‘This book is an enjoyable read and of interest to professional and history scholars as well as health professionals, students and others interested in critical perspectives on mental health work.’Geertje Boschma, University of British Columbia‘It is encouraging to see works like this begin to fill out the scanty literature on mental health nursing history, and hopefully this will inform future research in this undervalued area.’ Philippa Martyr, University of Western Australia, Health and History 18/2‘This is an important book, and a timely reminder that, in spite of setting or of policy, those who work on the front line of patient care are the ones who often have the biggest impact on patient experience. Within the caring relationship, the patient and the nursing staff are inextricably bound, and this volume allows us to further understand the intricacies involved in this important, complex relationship.’ H-Net Reviews, April 2018

• Introduction – Anne Borsay and Pamela Dale1. Psychiatric nurses and their patients in the nineteenth century: The Irish perspective – Oonagh Walsh2. A duty to learn: Attendant training in Victoria, Australia 1880–1907 – Lee-Ann Monk3.‘Who are these?’ Nursing shell–shocked patients in Cardiff during the First World War – Anne Borsay and Sara Knight4. Discourses of dispute: Narratives of asylum nurses and attendants, 1910–1922 – Barbara Douglas 5. ‘Surely a nice occupation for a girl?’ Stories of nursing, gender, violence and mental illness in British asylums, 1914–30 – Vicky Long6. Re–assessing staffing requirements and creating new roles for nurses during a period of rapid institutional change at the RWCI, 1927–48 – Pamela Dale 7. ‘The weakest link in the chain of nursing’? Recruitment and retention in mental health nursing in England, 1948–68 – Claire Chatterton8. Wardens, letter writing, and the welfare state, 1944–74 – John Welshman9. Learning disability nursing: Surviving change c. 1970–90 – Duncan Mitchell10. Between asylum and community: The DGH psychiatric nurse, Withington Hospital, 1971–91 –Val Harrington Index