Catalogue description Advisory Committee on the training of District Nurses, Panel of Assessors: Minutes and Papers

District nurse training was originally organised by voluntary and charitable bodies, chief among which was the Queen's Institute of District Nursing founded in 1889. Following the recommendations of a working party on the training of district nurses which reported to the Minister of Health in 1955, a non-statutory permanent advisory committee was set up in 1957 'to advise the Minister on matters relating to district nurse training and in particular on the approval of schemes of district nurse training and examination submitted by local health authorities'.

The Advisory Committee on the Training of District Nurses consisted of twelve members, representing the Queen's Institute, local authorities and other interested organisations. It met monthly and in 1959 produced a report which included an approved syllabus and recommended the establishment of a permanent panel of assessors in a supervisory role. When the initial three year terms of appointment of the advisory committee members expired in 1960 they were not renewed and the panel of assessors, established in 1959, became the permanent body.

The panel was drawn initially from the advisory committee but expanded to twenty members, representing district nurse teaching and management, general education and medicine. The Panel reported directly to the minister and in 1968 assumed full responsibility for training syllabuses and examination arrangements. Its other responsibilities included maintaining a register of district nurses and a roll of district nurse tutors, and initiating development in training.

In 1971 the panel changed its name to Panel of Assessors for District Nurse Training and in 1979 it was reconstituted in preparation for the introduction of mandatory training, and a new curriculum for both state registered nurses (SRN) and state enrolled nurses (SEN).

A review of all nursing bodies by the Briggs Co-ordinating Committee led to the Nurses, Midwives and Health Visitors Act 1979, which dissolved all statutory and non-statutory training bodies, and replaced them with the United Kingdom Central Council for Nursing, Midwifery and Health Visiting (UKCC) and four National Boards. The Panel of Assessors was replaced in 1983 by the District Nursing Joint Committee, a statutory committee of the UKCC.