A tea lady provides drinks in an office, factory, hospital, or other place of work. The role under this name began in Britain during World War II, and continues in the National Health Service today. It used to be a wide-spread occupation for women, and as such was well represented in popular culture.
Tea ladies entered the mainstream in the UK during the Second World War, when they were used in an experiment to boost efficiency in workplaces for the war effort (see Women in World War II#Workplace). They had such a hugely positive effect on morale they became commonplace in all areas of work, mobile canteens even serving military units on exercises. [1] They were present in a works canteen or perhaps came round with a trolley, on which was usually a tea urn full of either hot tea or hot water, and perhaps a selection of cakes and buns.
This occupation began to die out in the late 1970s to early 1980s when tea ladies began to be replaced by private catering firms and vending machines, as businesses expanded and women moved into different jobs. The tradition of the tea break, from which the role of tea lady rose, has itself declined, also offering a possible explanation why tea ladies are not commonly found today.
In Britain, market research in 2005 showed that of those workers who drank more than four cups of tea a day, only 2% of them received it from a tea lady, [2] whereas 66% received it from an urn, and 15% from a vending machine.
In Australia, Jenny Stewart, Professor of Public Policy in the University of New South Wales, uses the decline of the tea lady within the civil service as an example of "managerial solipsism": they provided civil servants with dependable "patterns of civilised sociability" at "significant economies of scale", but "they just faded away, as departments searched for easy ways of making savings". [3]
Tea ladies still exist in the National Health Service (NHS) [4] though the job of tea attendant is no longer restricted to women workers. Some hospital tea trolleys are operated by the Royal Voluntary Service. [5] Patients often comment on the tea ladies, and how their care made a hospital stay more bearable. [6] [7]
In the past they were often used as stereotypical figures in British comedy, with a tea lady usually portrayed as a harassed, overweight, middle aged woman in a uniform and cap, or as a very pretty recipient of all sorts of lewd comments from the workforce, as in the film Carry On at Your Convenience (1971).[ citation needed ]
In Australia, a sitcom called The Tea Ladies aired in 1978. [8]
Tea ladies in general were a frequent target of illusory "cuts" and "economies" in Yes Minister , frequently conjured up by Nigel Hawthorne's character Sir Humphrey Appleby, but a tea lady was only once seen onscreen during the whole five-series run of the show, sharing a lift with Jim Hacker and Sir Humphrey Appleby in the episode "The Skeleton in the Cupboard" (1982).[ citation needed ]
The 2003 film Love Actually featured Martine McCutcheon as tea lady at 10 Downing Street. [9] [10] [11]
Martine Kimberley Sherrie McCutcheon is an English actress and singer. She began appearing in television commercials at an early age and made her television debut in the children's television drama Bluebirds in 1989. In the early 1990s, she had minor success as one third of the pop group Milan, but it was her role as Tiffany Mitchell in the BBC's soap opera EastEnders and her role in the 2003 romantic comedy Love Actually that brought her stardom. For the former she won the National Television Award, while the latter earned her the Empire and MTV Movie awards. She was written out of EastEnders at the end of 1998 and then embarked on a pop career, this time as a solo artist.
King's College Hospital is a major teaching hospital and major trauma centre in Denmark Hill, Camberwell in the London Borough of Lambeth, referred to locally and by staff simply as "King's" or abbreviated internally to "KCH". It is managed by King's College Hospital NHS Foundation Trust. It serves an inner city population of 700,000 in the London boroughs of Southwark and Lambeth, but also serves as a tertiary referral centre in certain specialties to millions of people in southern England. It is a large teaching hospital and is, with Guy's Hospital and St. Thomas' Hospital, the location of King's College London School of Medicine and one of the institutions that comprise the King's Health Partners, an academic health science centre. The chief executive is Dr Clive Kay.
University College Hospital (UCH) is a teaching hospital in the Fitzrovia area of the London Borough of Camden, England. The hospital, which was founded as the North London Hospital in 1834, is closely associated with University College London (UCL), whose main campus is situated next door. The hospital is part of the University College London Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust
The word lady is a term for a girl or woman, with various connotations. Once used to describe only women of a high social class or status, the equivalent of lord, now it may refer to any adult woman, as gentleman can be used for men. Informal use is sometimes euphemistic or, in American slang, condescending in direct address.
The Walton Centre, formerly known as the Walton Centre for Neurology and Neurosurgery, is a major neurology hospital located in the suburb of Fazakerley in the city of Liverpool, England. It is one of several specialist hospitals located within the Liverpool City Region alongside Liverpool Heart and Chest Hospital, Alder Hey Children's Hospital, Liverpool Women's Hospital, Mersey Regional Burns and Plastic Surgery Unit and Clatterbridge Cancer Centre. The wards in the hospital are all named after pioneering neurosurgeons in the 20th and 21st century. It is managed by the Walton Centre NHS Foundation Trust.
Allied health professions are health care professions distinct from optometry, dentistry, nursing, medicine, clinical psychology, and pharmacy. They provide a range of diagnostic, technical, therapeutic, and support services in connection with health care.
Mind is a mental health charity in England and Wales. Founded in 1946 as the National Association for Mental Health (NAMH), it celebrated its 70th anniversary in 2016.
The Royal Voluntary Service is a voluntary organisation concerned with helping people in need throughout England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. It was founded in 1938 by Stella Isaacs, Marchioness of Reading, as a British women's organisation to recruit women into the Air Raid Precautions (ARP) services to help in the event of War.
Health and Social Care is a term that relates to services that are available from health and social care providers in the UK. This is a generic term used to refer to the whole of the healthcare provision infrastructure, and private sector. The English national provider of information about health and social care is the Health and Social Care Information Centre HSCIC. NHS Scotland has a Health and Social Care Management Board which meets fortnightly.
Health and Social Care (HSC) is the publicly funded healthcare system in Northern Ireland. Although having been created separately to the National Health Service (NHS), it is nonetheless considered a part of the overall national health service in the United Kingdom. The Northern Ireland Executive through its Department of Health is responsible for its funding, while the Public Health Agency is the executive agency responsible for the provision of public health and social care services across Northern Ireland. It is free of charge to all citizens of Northern Ireland and the rest of the United Kingdom.
The name National Health Service (NHS) is used to refer to the free public health services of England, Scotland and Wales, individually or collectively. Northern Ireland’s services are known as 'Health and Social Care' to promote its dual integration of health and social services.
The National Health Service (NHS) is the publicly funded healthcare system in England, and one of the four National Health Service systems in the United Kingdom. It is the second largest single-payer healthcare system in the world after the Brazilian Sistema Único de Saúde. Primarily funded by the government from general taxation, and overseen by the Department of Health and Social Care, the NHS provides healthcare to all legal English residents and residents from other regions of the UK, with most services free at the point of use for most people. The NHS also conducts research through the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR).
The National Health Service (NHS) is the umbrella term for the publicly funded healthcare systems of the United Kingdom (UK). Since 1948, they have been funded out of general taxation. There are three systems which are referred to using the "NHS" name. Health and Social Care in Northern Ireland was created separately and is often locally referred to as "the NHS". The four systems were established in 1948 as part of major social reforms following the Second World War. The founding principles were that services should be comprehensive, universal and free at the point of delivery—a health service based on clinical need, not ability to pay. Each service provides a comprehensive range of health services, free at the point of use for people ordinarily resident in the United Kingdom apart from dental treatment and optical care. In England, NHS patients have to pay prescription charges; some, such as those aged over 60 and certain state benefit recipients, are exempt.
Pennine Acute Hospitals NHS Trust is an acute hospital trust which, until 2019, operated Fairfield General Hospital in Bury, North Manchester General Hospital, the Royal Oldham Hospital and Rochdale Infirmary, all in Greater Manchester. It is now part of the Northern Care Alliance NHS Group. North Manchester General Hospital was formally acquired by Manchester University NHS Foundation Trust on April 1st 2021.
Blackberry Hill Hospital is an NHS psychiatric hospital in Fishponds, Bristol, England, specialising in forensic mental health services, operated by the Avon and Wiltshire Mental Health Partnership NHS Trust. The hospital also offers drug and alcohol rehabilitation inpatient services, and is the base for a number of community mental health teams.
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St Leonard's Hospital is a hospital in Hackney, North London.
Andover War Memorial Hospital is a community hospital in Andover, Hampshire. The hospital provides inpatient rehabilitation, day hospital services, a minor injury unit and an outpatient unit. It is operated by Hampshire Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, but some services are provided by Southern Health NHS Foundation Trust. The Countess of Brecknock Hospice is located on the same site as the hospital. The independent regulator of health and social care in England, the Care Quality Commission, rated Andover as "requires improvement" overall in 2018.
Dulwich Community Hospital was a hospital located in Dulwich, London. It was replaced by a modern health centre on the same site in April 2020.
Menopause in the workplace is a social and human resources campaigning issue in which people work to raise awareness of the impact menopause symptoms can have on attendance and performance in the workplace.
But these complete strangers were incredible. Even down to the tea lady who saw I was struggling to drink so tried every cup they had until we hit one with a spout which helped me swallow. And once she had discovered the cup that worked the best, she kept it aside for me. How’s that for putting the patient at the centre of their care? To me, it really made a difference.