Workhouse Nursing: The story of a successful experiment

THE STORY OF A SUCCESSFUL EXPERIMENT.
London: MACMILLAN AND CO. 1867.
The accompanying account of the Improvements introduced by the Select Vestry of Liverpool into the Workhouse Hospital Wards under their control, may perhaps be interesting to you, and possibly might prove suggestive and serviceable, if similar improvements should be required in your district.
As the time and strength of the Lady Superintendent of the Nurses employed in the Workhouse Hospital are very fully occupied, enquiries or requests for further information should not be addressed to her, but to the Chairman of the Workhouse Committee of the Select Vestry (and of the Hospital Sub-Committee),
T. H. SATCHELL, Esq. 48, Lord Street , Liverpool;
Or ,
H. J. HAGGER, Esq. Parish Offices , Liverpool.
The following pages contain a brief account of the experiment successfully tried by the Select Vestry of Liverpool (the guardians of the poor)—the introduction of trained Nurses into the male wards of the Workhouse Infirmary. That experiment having resulted so successfully as to induce the Vestry to extend the system to the remainder of the infirmary, it may be interesting to those who are concerned in the management of workhouses elsewhere to learn something of its history and progress. It is the writer’s object to explain—
1. The grounds on which the Vestry were led to undertake the experiment, as stated in the preliminary report of Mr. Carr, the governor, and that of the sub-committee of the Vestry appointed to consider the proposed scheme; and the replies received to inquiries addressed by them to institutions and persons connected with the training and employment of skilled nurses in London and Liverpool, with letters on the subject from Miss Nightingale and Sir John M c Neill.
2. The results of the experiment, so far as hitherto ascertained.
“That Liverpool could commence this movement with great effect, and with the certainty that her example would be widely followed. “That she had in times past taken a leading part in such reform. The introduction of the New Poor Law produced little change in Liverpool; so many of its wisest provisions were already in operation there, some of them for twenty or thirty years. “That she had already established a system of attention to the sick poor in their own houses, which, if only by restoring heads of families to health and work, saved the parish many times the sum that it cost to private benevolence. “That, lastly and especially, the proposed reform ought to commence in Liverpool, because in her workhouse the guardians had already, by their liberality, provided the sick with everything in the shape of diet and medical comforts that could conduce to recovery; and what was now wanting to give effect to their wise benevolence was, that their system should be administered and their intentions carried out by efficient and reliable nurses, in the stead of unreliable paupers.”