Sheila Margaret Collins OBE FRCN (28 August 1921 – 13 March 2009) was a British nurse, writer and educationist. She was chair of the

Royal College of Nursing The Royal College of Nursing (RCN) is a registered trade union in the United Kingdom for those in the profession of nursing. It was founded in 1916, receiving its royal charter in 1928. Queen Elizabeth II was the patron until her death in 2022. ...

's council.

Life

Collins was born in 1921 in

Conwy Conwy (, ), previously known in English as Conway, is a walled market town, community and the administrative centre of Conwy County Borough in North Wales. The walled town and castle stand on the west bank of the River Conwy, facing Deganwy on ...

. She went to school at the John Bright Grammar School. She decided not to apply to university but after working as a trainee teacher at a local junior school she applied to train at the

London Hospital The Royal London Hospital is a large teaching hospital in Whitechapel in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets. It is part of Barts Health NHS Trust. It provides district general hospital services for the City of London and Tower Hamlets and sp ...

Whitechapel Whitechapel is a district in East London and the future administrative centre of the London Borough of Tower Hamlets. It is a part of the East End of London, east of Charing Cross. Part of the historic county of Middlesex, the area formed ...

. She was influenced in her choice by the emerging likelihood of a war and her entry to the London Hospital was delayed by a month because of war being declared in 1939. In 1953 she returned to the London Hospital as a tutor and she was appointed as Principal Tutor in 1960. She used her position to create an innovative approach to teaching nursing, but realising the value to learning both in the ward and the classroom. In 1965 she went to America and Canada funded by the British Red Cross Society to observe how teaching was taught in North America. In 1970 she began to study with the

Open University The Open University (OU) is a British public research university and the largest university in the United Kingdom by number of students. The majority of the OU's undergraduate students are based in the United Kingdom and principally study off- ...

. All of her studies were made in her spare time and after four years she was awarded a Bachelor of Arts. She was made a Fellow of the

in 1977. Collins was a member of the Briggs Committee on Nursing. In 1983 she and Edith Parker's "Introduction to Nursing" was published. In 1987 she was chair of the editorial board who created "The Essentials of Nursing: An Introduction" when she was an associate lecturer at the University of Surrey. In 1989 her study "Curriculum innovations in six English nursing schools collaborating with institutions of higher or advanced further education" was submitted for a master's degree, but the University of Surrey decided to award her a doctorate. She had an interest in history and she wrote "The Royal London Hospital: a Brief History" and a history of the Royal London League of Nurses. Collins died in 2009 in Farnborough. The

Nursing Standard ''Nursing Standard'' is a weekly professional magazine that contains peer-reviewed articles and research, news, and career information for the nursing field. The magazine was founded in 1987. It is published by RCNi. The magazine is abstracted a ...

noted that she had a "profound influence on the development of nurse education and nursing history".

Private life

She met Lilian Helen Margaret Collyer when they were both on a Royal College of Nursing course for tutors in 1949. They lived their lives together and entered into a civil partnership in 2007.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Collins, Sheila 1921 births 2009 deaths People from Conwy Nursing educators People educated at Ysgol John Bright Fellows of the Royal College of Nursing British nurses Officers of the Order of the British Empire