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NSW-Exhibition-Scotland-1

Exhibitions in Scotland

Discover the fascinating history of nursing support work and celebrate the contribution that nursing support workers continue to make today.

From Victorian asylums and wartime volunteers to nursing assistants and care workers today, this exhibition uncovers the long history and diversity of nursing support work.

Exhibits include a handmade magazine created by a young Agatha Christie when she was a volunteer nurse in the First World War, on loan from the . Never previously displayed, until this RCN exhibition in London and now in Edinburgh, the magazine gives a vivid insight into the resilience and camaraderie of volunteer nurses at a time of national emergency. 

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The exhibition shines a light on the personal stories of nursing support workers today, celebrating the contribution they continue to make – in hospitals, care homes, clinics and communities.

Other objects on display include items from Bethlem Museum of the Mind, Chester Riverside Museum, the Christie Archive Trust, Glenside Museum, the Red Cross Museum and Archives, and Barts Health NHS Trust Archives.

Shining a Light was put together in close collaboration with a group of RCN member volunteers who are support workers or work closely with support workers, and the RCN Nursing Support Worker Committee.

If visiting in person, the exhibition is open Monday to Thursday from 10am until 4pm.

If you can't visit the exhibition in person, check out the online exhibition.

The venue is wheelchair accessible. If you have any questions or accessibility needs, please contact us on scotland.library@rcn.org.uk or 0131 662 6163/4.

 

Shining a Light A history of nursing support work

Upcoming events:

06 February 2025
Hidden Voices
An interactive event for Nursing Support Workers from all settings to share stories and have your voice heard.

29 Apr 2025
Stories from Hospitals Back Home during the First World War
Join our panel of speakers for an evening of talks exploring how in the First World War, volunteers provided nurses with vital support as they cared for sick and wounded soldiers in hospitals back home.

Watch our exhibition launch event

Join our panel of finalists in the Nursing Support Worker category of our RCN Scotland Nurse of the Year Awards who have made an outstanding contribution to the care of patients or residents, and watch how we celebrate the contribution of nursing support workers in Scotland's health and care services.
YouTube

Our previous exhibition and events

Find out about the past, present and future of children and young people's nursing.

Children arenֱt just ֱsmall adultsֱ. They have different health and care needs, which change as they grow and develop.

This exhibition explored the history of children and young peopleֱs nursing ֱ from the first childrenֱs hospitals in the 1800s to the development of family-centred care.

Nursing for young people has often been ahead of the curve and influenced adult care. Yet this has not always been acknowledged, and childrenֱs nurses have had to fight for recognition of their specialist role. This exhibition showed that by recognising this past and by listening to and valuing young peopleֱs voices, we can better prepare for our future.

The exhibition was co-created with ֱ members, many of whom work in children and young peopleֱs nursing or have in the past. The volunteer team was involved in every stage of the exhibition from research, to writing exhibition panels, to exhibition design.

Objects on display included items from Bethlem Museum of the Mind, the Foundling Museum, the Old Operating Theatre Museum and Herb Garret, Southwark Heritage Centre, and objects and stories loaned by nurses past and present.

The exhibition also included artwork by pupils at St. Columbaֱs Primary School in Annan, Dumfries & Galloway, Trinity School in Carlisle, Eday Community School on the Island of Eday in Orkney and Westray Junior High School on the island of Westray, Orkney

text reading 'Once Upon a Time... A history of children and young people's nursing' amongst colourful shapes and a historical image of a nurse with a child in hospital.

Exhibition Launch Event

Watch out launch event for this exhibition with speakers including:

  • Sue Ward, former Group Deputy Chief Nurse and part of the group of volunteers who curated this RCN Library and Archivesֱ History of Children and Young Peopleֱs nursing exhibition
  • Finalists in the Children's Nursing & Midwifery Award at the 2022 RCN Scotland Nurse of the Year Awards, the Capella Team. A childrenֱs community nursing team in NHS Dumfries and Galloway explore how children and their families living within a remote and rural area receive the most appropriate and peaceful end of life care in the absence of a specialist palliative care team
  • Brenda Kirk, Highly Commended Finalist for the Children's Nursing & Midwifery Award at last yearֱs RCN Scotland Nurse of the Year Awards who explores how community childrenֱs nursing care for children with a disability enables improvements in health outcomes.

Celebrating Children and Young People's Nursing

Watch our second event of this exhibition series which celebrates the incredible work of Scotlandֱs nursing staff working with children, young people and new parents.

Hear from three of the finalists from our recent RCN Scotland Nurse of the Year Awards 2024, as they provide an insight into the work that led to their nomination and recognition.

In Conversation with Nursing Pioneers: What can we do to stem nursing's recruitment and retention crisis? 

This event focused on the escalating crisis of recruitment and retention in nursing, nationally and globally with a panel of RCN Fellows examining the causes and effects of this crisis. Hear ideas about what the profession itself can do to attract and keep new nursing recruits, and when we need to push for government support.

In Conversation with Nursing Pioneers: The recruitment and retention crisis

The COVID-19 pandemic exposed the personal and professional challenges that nursing and healthcare professionals face every day. The public looked to them as masked heroes but many felt they were just doing their job.

Yet this pandemic, like others before it, exposed the risks taken by nursing professionals at work. Over 850 healthcare workers are thought to have died after contracting COVID-19 in 2020. The pandemic was not equal, impacting on some staff more than others, particularly those from Black, Asian and minority ethnic backgrounds.

The risk of infection occurred everywhere that nursing took place: whether in the community, in care homes, in mental health or in maternity wards.

This exhibition looked behind the masks, to explore the thoughts, feelings and experiences of nursing staff during COVID-19 and past pandemics.

black and white photo of healthcare worker in PPE with text reading 'unmasked real stories of nursing in covid19'

30 Nov 2023 - 16 May 2024

Learning Hub, RCN Scotland Headquarters (Edinburgh), 42 South Oswald Road, Edinburgh, EH9 2HH

Nursing in COVID-19 - RCN Scotland member stories

Nursing staff played a crucial role in caring for people during the COVID-19 pandemic. This video shares some of the personal and professional challenges nursing staff faced during 2020 and 2021. The quotes used in the film as real lived experiences voiced by actors.

Exhibition launch: UNMASKED: Real Stories of Nursing in COVID-19 

Watch the launch of our new exhibition revealing the real experiences of nursing during the COVID-19 pandemic and past pandemics. Hear from Professor Christine Hallett and Amanda Gwinnup on the parallels and differences between nursing during COVID-19 and the 1918 Flu Pandemic, and from Professor Jason Leitch CBE, National Clinical Director of Healthcare Quality and Strategy at the Scottish Government on innovations from the pandemic that may shape future pandemic responses and what has been learnt from COVID-19. At the event we also had a script reading by China Plate Theatre of Humans Not Heroes and view a new short film reflecting the lived experience of nursing staff in Scotland during COVID-19 gathered using SenseMaker®.

Exhibition graphic, reads A History of Care or Control? in green font on pale blue background. Paper doll cutout figure representing a nurse in top right corner.

Watch videos of our previous exhibition events:

 

 

Exhibition launch event

Learning disabilities professionals explain what we can learn from the experiences of people with a learning disability in the past and more recent history of learning disability nursing, and explore how care for people with learning disabilities has shifted over time with reflections on learning disability nursing today.

A conversation with Learning Disability Nurses

What is it like working as a learning disability nurse? And what do such nurses do? Watch this recording of a panel of learning disability nurses discussing these questions and more at RCN Scotland HQ in Edinburgh.

Celebrating Learning Disability Nursing

Learning disability nurses help people of all ages with learning disabilities to maintain their health and wellbeing and to live their lives as fully and independently as possible. Join our finalists in the Learning Disability Nursing Category of our RCN Scotland Nurse of the Year Awards for an evening of celebration and discussion.  These nursing staff have succeeded in raising standards of care for their patients and clients and have made an outstanding contribution to person-centred care, innovation and high quality services that make a difference.

Page last updated - 17/12/2024