The Labour Party and the Nursing Profession
1927 1927 1920s 40 pages 6 ADDRESS OF WELCOME BY RT. HON. J. RAMSAY MACDONALD, M.P. The Conference was opened by the Right Hon. J. Ramsay MacDonald, M.P., the leader of the Labour Party, who said: Ladies and gentlemen, I am very glad indeed to be able to look in this morning in order to give you a...
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| Institution: | MCR - The Modern Records Centre, University of Warwick |
| Language: | English English |
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London : The Labour Party (London : Co-operative Print. Society Ltd.)
[1927]
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| Online Access: | http://hdl.handle.net/10796/2DB8FC8C-0111-46F2-9BE4-2F651759DC41 http://hdl.handle.net/10796/71503EC3-2443-470F-AFD0-586B59F9AAE0 |
| Summary: | 1927
1927
1920s
40 pages
6 ADDRESS OF WELCOME BY RT. HON. J. RAMSAY MACDONALD, M.P. The Conference was opened by the Right Hon. J. Ramsay MacDonald, M.P., the leader of the Labour Party, who said: Ladies and gentlemen, I am very glad indeed to be able to look in this morning in order to give you a very hearty welcome. I have looked down the list of bodies represented, and I think we ought to congratulate ourselves on the wonderfully representative character of this gathering. Those of us who have "come up from below" feel in a very peculiar way a sense of gratitude to the Nursing Profession. We have known what that Profession can do, not from hearsay, and not because in any way we have entered into what I might call managerial relations with them, but because we have been ill, and they have ministered unto us, and I can assure you that anyone who has had that experience, either themselves or in the case of their families, will for ever afterwards be enlisted amongst those who desire to show their gratitude to the members of the Nursing Profession. We have compiled a Draft Report on the Nursing Profession. A large part of that Report is descriptive: it sets forth the facts. Nobody knows better than doctors and nurses that the scientific method of approaching the problem is the only method that gives any prospect of permanent good. We can have our ideas, we can talk grandiloquently, and can produce a most glowing coinage of words, but in the end nothing happens. We only stir up feeling, mislead people, make reformers go round and round about like a dog searching for its tail, and in the end, settle down in the place where they started their perambulations. That not a scientific method, and that is not the method we are going to pursue in administration and legislation, and in the production of constructive ideas and the creation of programmes. We begin by studying the facts. What are the facts? What is it that underlies the grievances that appear on the surface and upon the existence of which there is common agreement? In compiling this document we have pursued a method which, I believe, without any further explanation or defence or appeal, the Medical Profession and the Nursing Profession, being scientific Professions, will at once accept as being the sound method of approach. We have described, for instance, how Nurses and would-be Nurses are admitted to training, the qualifications they have to possess, and the institutions whose doors are open to them. We have described the processes of probation and of training. We have given tables of wages, hours, times for recreation, and so on. We have indicated what superannuation arrangements have been made, and what sort of friendly benefits may be enjoyed by the Nurse when she is no longer able to earn an income for herself. We have dealt with the organisations that exist, and we have explained the process and scope of registration. Then we have made certain recommendations. We have, as it were, put the elements into the test-tube, we have put the test-tube under certain conditions, we have brought these elements into contact with certain reactions, and we have produced what we consider certain sound conclusions and results. I have just been reading one of those many books that always appear in times of revolutionary thought. You must not be frightened by the word "revolutionary," it does not mean "bloody," but it means the intellectual and social ferment into which the minds of men and women are plunged at certain times, when, as it were, the pot is coming to the boil, and it is very difficult to say what is going to come out of it — when we seem to be breaking with the past, sometimes sharply, and sometimes not so
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