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for the State Registration of Trained Nurses, the Fever Nurses' Association,
the Association for the Promotion of the Registration of Nurses in
Scotland, the Scottish Nurses' Association, and the Irish Nurses' Association,
comprising not less than 30,000 medical practitioners and nurses.
Hitherto no minimum standard of knowledge for professional
nurses has been defined or enforced. The object of the Bill is to ensure
that the community shall have a guarantee that the nurses they employ
are skilled in their professional duties, and through standardisation to
give security to the public that the services of fully qualified nurses shall
be readily obtainable.
The Bill establishes a "General Council for the Registration of
Nurses in the United Kingdom," composed of persons appointed by the
Privy Council, the Local Government Boards in the United Kingdom,
associations of registered medical practitioners, and direct representatives
of the nursing profession. The duties and powers of this Council are
defined in Clause 10 of the Bill; amongst the most important of them are
the standardisation of training, and the examination and registration of
nurses.
In 1905 a Select Committee of the House of Commons on registration
of nurses, which took evidence during two sessions, unanimously reported
that "Your committee are agreed that it is desirable that a register of
nurses should be kept by a central body appointed by the State."
The registration of trained nurses is in force in Cape Colony, Natal,
the Transvaal, and the Orange River Colony in South Africa, in New
Zealand, in the province of Ontario in Canada, in the State of Queensland,
Australia, in the Bombay Presidency in India, in 34 of the United States
of America, in the German Empire, and in Belgium.