The pioneering legacy of the Florence Nightingale Faculty of Nursing, Midwifery and Palliative Care
The Faculty is directly descended from the Nightingale Training School, which Florence set up in 1860 at St Thomas’ Hospital in London.
Florence Nightingale and the Crimean War
In 1854, Florence Nightingale and 38 other nurses left for the Scutari Crimean War hospital. The Lady with the Lamp has since become an iconic image in British culture.
After returning from Crimea, Florence helped to set up the Nightingale Training School in 1860 at St Thomas’ Hospital. The first nurses started training here the same year.
Florence’s death and the evolution of the Training School
In 1910, Florence died peacefully in her sleep age 90 at her home in Mayfair.
The training school that she helped to set up continued thriving, setting a precedent for formal nursing training. In 1919, Olive Haydon, who helped to set up a School of Midwifery at St Thomas’ Hospital, published an account of the history of midwifery, predicting a future training college dedicated to formal education of midwives.
Olive and Florence’s legacies were combined in 1991-1993 when the Nightingale Training School merged with the Olive Haydon School of Midwifery and the Thomas Guy & Lewisham School of Nursing to become the Nightingale College of Health.
In 1993, the Nightingale College of Health became a part of King’s College London. Today, with a community of thousands of staff and students, the Faculty is having a greater impact than ever.
Today, we still have a strong connection with London's NHS Trusts through King’s Health Partners and our Professors of the Practice of Nursing. These professors are both Chief Nurses, at Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Trust and King’s Hospital NHS Trust.
We are continuing Nightingale’s legacy through education, research and international leadership. New generations of healthcare professionals are going out into the world to make a real difference in people’s lives, with over 150 years of King’s history and expertise behind them.
Cicely Saunders and the hospice movement
Cicely Saunders enrolled at the Nightingale School of Nursing in 1940. She went on to found the hospice movement by founding the St Christopher’s Hospice, the first research and teaching hospice linked with clinical care. This created the field of palliative medicine as we know it today.
In 2002, Cicely Saunders and her charity, now known as Cicely Saunders International, created the Cicely Saunders Institute, the first dedicated centre of excellence for research and education in palliative care. Cicely died peacefully at St Christopher’s in 2005, the renowned hospice that she herself created.
Bringing together nursing, midwifery and palliative care
Between 2014 and 2017 the Nightingale College became a Faculty in its own right, merging with the Cicely Saunders Institute in 2017 to create the Florence Nightingale Faculty of Nursing, Midwifery and Palliative Care.