Nottingham Children's Hospital has "enthusiasm and dedication in spades" | Latest news

A plaque to commemorate the life of Ethel Gordon Fenwick – pioneer and the country’s first State Registered Nurse – has been unveiled at Nottingham Children’s Hospital, where she started her career in 1878.

The plaque is one of seven identical plaques installed in places significant to Ethel’s life and career: Nottingham Children’s Hospital, Royal London, St Bart’s, Manchester Royal Infirmary, Nursing and Midwifery Council in London, the International Council of Nurses in Geneva, and Thoroton Church; she was raised at Thoroton Hall.

Ethel campaigned tirelessly to get nursing recognised as a profession and for nursing to be regulated. In 1919, the Nurses’ Registration Act was passed and, when the register opened in 1923, Ethel was listed as Nurse No.1.

It was a double celebration for the Children’s Hospital, which also hosted a visit by Rebecca Graystone, Vice President of the Magnet and Pathway Programmes, ANCC, and David Wilcox, Director and Regional Clinical Executive of Cerner Corporation, a global health care technology company in the US, on a Pathway to Excellence®  visit. Last year, the hospital won the ANCC Pathway Award®, sponsored by Cerner, and was awarded $50,000.

“It is an absolute honour to cut this ribbon,” said Rebecca Graystone. “Ethel Gordon Fenwick was a woman with a curious mind, a fierce debater, and uncompromising in her beliefs. She left an enduring legacy.”

The ceremony was also attended by Elizabeth Wood-Dow OBE, Chair of the Ethel Gordon Fenwick Commemorative Partnership and President of St Bartholomew’s League of Nurses, Dame Elizabeth Fradd, deputy lieutenant of Nottinghamshire, honorary professor at the University of Nottingham, and former children’s nurse, and John and Michelle O’Reilly, the current owners of Thoroton Hall, where Ethel grew up.

Dame Elizabeth said: “I’m really proud that Ethel started her nursing career here, in Nottingham and – as a children’s nurse who used to work here – that she started her career in children’s nursing.

“I like to think that influenced the way she continued with her career. She was an exceptional woman, she was a campaigner and I’ve got great regard for somebody who is able to stick their neck out and, to argue with Florence Nightingale is quite something.

“Florence believed that you had a calling to be a nurse and Ethel said yes, of course, you’ve got to have a passion to do it but nurses have got to be trained to a standard, and that was the crucial thing. We are where we are as a result of Ethel’s commitment to making sure that there was a national standard for the way that we all did things.

“And of course those standards have changed but I like to think that Nottingham had some influence over her thinking.”

Nottingham’s Children’s Hospital is the first ANCC-accredited (American Nurses’ Credentialing Center) Pathway to Excellence® hospital outside of North America. This means it is internationally recognised as an excellent place for nurses to work, with high job satisfaction, professional opportunity and retention, which enables it to deliver outstanding patient care.

The hospital was presented with $50,000 as part of the ANCC Pathway Award®, sponsored by Cerner Corporation.

The award is for a project proposal that uses innovation and technology to improve the nursing environment.

The children’s hospital is developing a multilingual app - co-designed and developed with children and their families. Because the app is multilingual, it not only has the potential to impact outcomes in NCH’s service area, but also globally.

“With this application, families will be involved and empowered to participate in the recognition and rescue of their child in the hospital with the potential to implement in the community and other settings across the care system,” said Michelle Rhodes, MSc, RN, Dip DN, Chief Nursing Officer, NUH.

“Collaboration is key to improving the patient experience, and this innovative technology developed by NCH nurses will enable families to be at the heart of health care decisions involving their children,” said Rebecca Graystone.

David Wilcox said: “Oracle Cerner likes to sponsor the prize because we are all about the innovation, we try to make it match the nurses’ workflow so they have a smoother time of it, so it doesn’t become them nursing a computer. So when we see innovation like we’ve seen here, we like to back it to make sure you can get it out, spread it to your community, and save some lives.”

Rebecca Graystone added: “Part of the journey of a hospital becoming Pathway to Excellence® accredited is really the change in culture, the enthusiasm and pride in the nursing profession, and that is here in spades. It is palpable - you can feel the nurses’ enthusiasm, their dedication to care, and the difference they want to make.

“There is so much to be proud of here. We are extremely proud of the work going on at Nottingham’s Children’s Hospital - we just can’t wait to see what they do next.”