The Royal College of Nursing (RCN) is a registered trade union and professional body in the United Kingdom for those in the profession of nursing. It was founded in 1916 as the College of Nursing, receiving its royal charter in 1928. Queen Elizabeth II was the patron until her death in 2022, King Charles III continued the royal connection and became patron in 2024. The majority of members are registered nurses; however student nurses and healthcare assistants are also members. There is also a category of membership, at a reduced cost, for retired people.
Dame Christine Joan Beasley, is a British nurse and NHS healthcare administrator.
Dame Margaret June Clark, FAANFLSW is Professor Emeritus of Community Nursing, at Swansea University in Wales.
Alison Kitson FRCN is inaugural Vice President and Executive Dean of the College of Nursing and Health Sciences at Flinders University South Australia. She is also an Associate Fellow of Green Templeton College, Oxford, United Kingdom.
Dame Elizabeth Nneka Anionwu is a British nurse, health care administrator, lecturer, and Emeritus Professor of Nursing at the University of West London.
Dame Elizabeth Harriet Fradd, DBE, FRCN was a British nursing administrator.
Peter Carter, OBE is an independent healthcare consultant and a former General Secretary of the Royal College of Nursing. He is a Fellow of the Royal College of Nursing, and Hon fellow of the Royal College of General Practitioners and an Ad Eundem of the Royal College of Surgeons of Ireland.
Dame Gillian Frances Oliver, DBE, FRCN is a British nursing administrator. An expert in cancer nursing and palliative care, she has been instrumental in developing cancer services, policy and strategy in the UK and beyond.
Nursing is a health care profession that "integrates the art and science of caring and focuses on the protection, promotion, and optimization of health and human functioning; prevention of illness and injury; facilitation of healing; and alleviation of suffering through compassionate presence". Nurses practice in many specialties with varying levels of certification and responsibility. Nurses comprise the largest component of most healthcare environments. Shortages of qualified nurses are found in many countries.
Dame Anne Marie Rafferty FRCN is a British nurse, academic and researcher. She is the professor of nursing policy and the former dean of the Florence Nightingale Faculty of Nursing, Midwifery and Palliative Care at King's College London. She served as President of the Royal College of Nursing from 2019 to 2021.
Andrea Spyropoulos, RGN, SCM, RNT, is a British nurse, clinical strategist and a past president of the Royal College of Nursing (RCN).
Loretta C. Ford is an American nurse and the co-founder of the first nurse practitioner program. Along with pediatrician Henry Silver, Ford started the pediatric nurse practitioner program at the University of Colorado in 1965. In 1972, Ford joined the University of Rochester as founding dean of the nursing school.
Rhetaugh Etheldra Graves Dumas (1928–2007) was an American nurse, professor, and health administrator. Dumas was the first Black woman to serve as a dean at the University of Michigan. She served as the dean of the University of Michigan Nursing School. She also served as deputy director of the National Institute of Mental Health, becoming the first nurse, female, or African-American to hold that position. She is said to have been the first nurse to use the scientific method to conduct experiments that evaluated nursing practices.
Vernice Doris Ferguson was an American nurse and healthcare executive. She was the nursing department head at the National Institutes of Health Clinical Center for several years, then served as a nurse executive with the United States Department of Veterans Affairs for twelve years. Ferguson held faculty appointments at several American universities. She was named a Living Legend of the American Academy of Nursing, was the second American named an honorary Fellow of the Royal College of Nursing in the United Kingdom and received several honorary doctorates.
Suzanne Gordon is an American journalist and author who writes about healthcare delivery and health care systems and patient safety and nursing. Gordon coined the term "Team Intelligence," to describe the constellation of skills and knowledge needed to build the kind of teams upon which patient safety depends. Her work includes, First Do Less Harm: Confronting the Inconvenient Problems of Patient Safety, a collection of essays edited with Ross Koppel and Beyond the Checklist: What Else Health Care Can Learn from Aviation Safety and Teamwork, written with commercial pilot Patrick Mendenhall and medical educator Bonnie Blair O’Connor, with a foreword by Captain Chesley "Sully" Sullenberger.
Lisbeth Hockey was an Austrian-born British nurse and researcher. She was the first director of the Nursing Research Unit in Edinburgh. She was awarded a PhD for research in nursing, one of the first people to do so.
Professor Dame Donna Kinnair DBE is a British nurse and former Chief Executive and General Secretary of the Royal College of Nursing (RCN). She has specialised in child protection, providing leadership in major hospital trusts in London, teaching, and advising on legal and governmental committees.
Pam Smith FRCN is a Professor of Nursing in the School of Health in Social Science at the University of Edinburgh. Her research relates to emotions and care within the nursing profession.
Barbara Riegel is an American clinical researcher, clinical nurse specialist, academic, and author. She is a Professor in the School of Nursing at the University of Pennsylvania, a Professor Emerita at San Diego State University, and Co-Director of the International Center for Self-Care Research.
Ruth Oshikanlu FRCN, MBE is a nurse, midwife and health visitor, best known as a social entrepreneur.
