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.
Sylvia Ernestine Denton (1941-2020), CBE, FRCN. RHV. Denton was one of the first Breast Care Nurses in the United Kingdom and President of the Royal College of Nursing from 2002-2006.
Dame Elizabeth Nneka Anionwu is a British nurse, health care administrator, lecturer, and Emeritus Professor of Nursing at the University of West London.
Professor Dame Jill Macleod Clark, DBE, RGN, FRCN has held key leadership roles in Nursing and healthcare. She was Dean of the Faculty of Health Sciences University of Southampton. She is currently Professor Emeritus at the University of Southampton and holds Visiting Professor positions in the UK, Canada and Australia.
Gary J. Jones, is a British nurse and author. He is a Fellow of the Royal College of Nursing, the Florence Nightingale Foundation and the Faculty of Emergency Nursing. He is the editor and/or author of a number of journals and published articles about nursing.
Christine Joy Moffatt, CBE, FRCN is a British nurse and educator.
Annie Therese Altschul, CBE, BA, MSc, RGN, RMN, RNT, FRCN was Britain's first mental health nurse pioneer; a midwife, researcher, educator, author and a patient advocate, emeritus professor of nursing.
Margaret Forbes Alexander is a Scottish nurse, educator, researcher and writer. She is emeritus professor at the School of Nursing and Community Health at Glasgow Caledonian University (GCU).
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.
Dame Catherine Mary Hall was a British nurse and nursing administrator who was a long serving General Secretary of the UK's Royal College of Nursing (1957–1982).
Andrea Spyropoulos, RGN, SCM, RNT, is a British nurse, clinical strategist and a past president of the Royal College of Nursing (RCN).
Ellen McCourt is a British trade unionist, and was a representative for junior doctors at the British Medical Association (BMA) during a dispute about the 2016 contract of employment.
Nursing Studies is an academic unit within the School of Health in Social Science at University of Edinburgh. A teaching unit was established in 1956, the first to be part of a British university. The unit's initial focus was on education for nursing teachers and leaders. In 1960 it offered the first degree courses in nursing in the UK. It became a department of the university in 1965 and six years later gained a Chair of Nursing Studies, which was the first to be established in Europe. The unit also had a Nursing Research Unit, which opened in 1971 and ran for more than twenty years. The unit continues to offer nurse education at undergraduate, postgraduate and research levels.
Roger Watson is a British academic and Honorary Professor at the University of Hull.
Cecilia Akrisie Anim former president of the Royal College of Nursing (RCN), and a clinical nurse specialist in sexual and reproductive health at the Margaret Pyke Centre in London.
Patrick Gerald McKenna, DL, FIBMS, FRSB, MRIA, known informally and widely as Gerry McKenna, is a Chartered Biologist and Chartered Scientist from Northern Ireland.
Fiona Mary Ross, is a British nurse and academic. She is Emerita Professor in Health and Social Care at Kingston University and an independent governor on the Westminster University Court. Formerly she was Dean at Kingston University and St George's, University of London, and also the director of research at the Leadership Foundation for Higher Education.
Alison Joan Tierney FRCN is a British nurse researcher and educator and a former editor-in-chief of the Journal of Advanced Nursing. Tierney was one of the first graduates (1971) of the Integrated Degree/Nursing programme at The University of Edinburgh. In 2018 she was named as one of 70 of the most influential nurses in the 70 years of the NHS.
The Nursing & Health Care School, University of Glasgow, is a speciality area within the School of Medicine, Dentistry and Nursing in Glasgow, Scotland. The School has offered a degree course in Nursing since 1977, introduced under the Dean of the Faculty of Medicine at the time, Professor Edward McGirr.
Elizabeth Elaine Wilkie OBE FRCN (23 August 1915 - 14 December 1998) was a Scottish nurse and the first Director of the Council for the Education and Training of Health Visitors in the UK. Wilkie was instrumental in the development of Health Visitors training in the UK. She received an OBE for her work.
