The Royal College of Nursing (RCN) is a registered trade union in the United Kingdom for those in the profession of nursing. It was founded in 1916, receiving its royal charter in 1928. Queen Elizabeth II was the patron until her death in 2022. 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.
Nursing in the United Kingdom has a long history. The current form of nursing is often considered as beginning with Florence Nightingale who pioneered modern nursing. Nightingale initiated formal schools of nursing in the United Kingdom in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The role and perception of nursing has dramatically changed from that of a handmaiden to the doctor to professionals in their own right. There are over 700,000 nurses in the United Kingdom and they work in a variety of settings, such as hospitals, health centres, nursing homes, hospices, communities, military, prisons, and academia, with most working for the National Health Service (NHS). Nurses work across all demographics and requirements of the public: adults, children, mental health, and learning disability. Nurses work in a range of specialties from the broad areas of medicine, surgery, theatres, and investigative sciences such as imaging. Nurses also work in large areas of sub-specialities such as respiratory, diabetes, cancer, neurology, infectious diseases, liver, research, cardiac, women's health, sexual health, emergency and acute care, gastrointestinal, infection prevention and control, neuroscience, ophthalmic, pain and palliative, and rheumatology. Nurses often work in multi-disciplinary teams but increasingly are found working independently.
Sylvia Ernestine Denton (1941-2020), CBE, FRCN. Denton was one of the first Breast Care Nurses in the United Kingdom and President of the Royal College of Nursing from 2002-2006.
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 Harriet Fradd, DBE, FRCN, is a British nursing administrator. Between 1973–1983, she held a variety of registered nurse, midwife and health visitor posts, while training as a children’s nurse who also managed children's units in Nottingham and worked as a nursing officer at the Department of Health.
Peter Carter, OBE is an independent healthcare consultant nd 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.
Mary Wakefield is an American nurse and health care administrator, who served in the Obama administration as acting United States Deputy Secretary of Health and Human Services from 2015 to 2017, and as head of the Health Resources and Services Administration from 2009 to 2015.
Mona Elizabeth Clara Grey was a British nurse who was named Northern Ireland's first Chief Nursing Officer (CNO) in 1960.
Dame Anne Marie Rafferty FRCN is a British nurse, academic and researcher. She is professor of nursing policy and 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.
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.
