Lancashire College of Nursing

[backman]

 I recently asked a question about this square badge finding the red Lancashire rose on an arrow shape.It always appears that it should be worn at an angle but i wanted to know if that was the case? I received a very helpful response from Stephanie Beswick and reproduce it here for interest.This is just the sort of detail missing from many of the badges in our albums, if anyone can provide similar background knowledge of their own badges it would be gratefully received;

Regarding the history of the above badge.  I was a ward sister at Blackburn Royal Infirmary when it was introduced in 1993.  The angle at which it was worn seemed to be left to the choice of the individual nurse.  In 1989, we were still on the Blackburn, Hyndburn and Ribble Valley badge (ie the Blackburn Badge).  From the May set of 1989,  Blackburn and Burnley schools of nursing were merged into the East Lancashire College of Nursing but this only remained valid until the nurses completing training in January 1993.  Thereafter, the square badge was used.
 
The Lancashire College of Nursing included all the schools of nursing in Lancashire, ie Preston, East Lancashire, Blackpool, Lancaster, also Ormskirk in Merseyside and I believe Southport as well.  The main site was at Preston Royal but I think that Ormskirk and Blackburn were also used.
 
Some remarkable little schools of nursing were abolished in this area in the 80s.  Accrington Victoria was a lovely little hospital with about 9 wards plus casualty.  It was an SRN school (in conjunction with BRI and QPH).  It then became an SEN school in its own right.  After that closed,  students from BRI did some of their training there, but even that was discontinued.  And all this in the space of a decade!
 
There was also an SEN school at Rossendale General/Bury General, which closed in 1986.
 
There was an SEN school at  Burnley Victoria/Reedyford (Nelson)/Hartley(Colne) which also at one time was an SRN school.
 
It is scandalous when you think what has happened in  East Lancashire in the  A & E field in the 90s and onwards.  Firstly the Casualty in Colne was closed, patients having to go to Burnley which is already a long journey.
 
Then the  major A & E at Burnley General was closed, in a large hospital, not only serving the large town of Burnley ( 80,000) plus Nelson, Colne and Rossendale.  The Colne area was now much nearer to Skipton A&E  but, of course, wasn’t in their  “catchment area”.  There was such an outcry that it was re-opened but only for  “Minor Injuries”.  So if you had an M I in Trawden, outside Colne, you had to hang on until you reached A & E at Blackburn.  But if it is a head injury, you have to go even further, to Preston Royal.
 
Some of Blackburn’s specialities have been transferred to Hope Hospital,  Salford while paediatric specialties have to go to St.  Mary’s in Manchester.
 
With all this merging and transferring, to say nothing of outright closure, patients were put in a terrible position, having to travel large distances for their care.  Even if you have a car, the motorways around Manchester are so congested, it takes ages to reach Hope and St. Mary’s.  Heaven help the poor soul with an 8 am appointment!
 
On the good side,  one or two wards at AVH have been re-opened for day surgery, after many years of closure. Also the former Casualty there has been re-opened as a minor injuries centre.  So things have at last improved at Accy.
 
I hope that this mail gives you the information you required, plus a great deal more!

[myk1066]

I worked at Queens Park Hospital and undertook ENG to RGN whilst there, and was awarded this square badge, not a particularly stunning badge considering previous badges.  I never knew Colne had an A&E, which Hospital was it located?  I did. Some bank on one of the wards at Accy Vic and recall a staff nurse in her hat, starched collar & apron when a more modern plain uniform was in situ. I enjoyed my early career at Blackburn.

[backman]

and more
Just a few additions and corrections re: the above,

The hospital in Colne was called the Hartley Hospital and connected to Burnley General Hospital for SRN training.  There was also a Maternity Hospital, the Christiana Hartley hospital.   All these small hospitals also had maternity hospitals attached but I do not think that any of them offered SCM training.

The hospital in Nelson was called the Reedyford Memorial Hospital and was mainly for surgical cases. I have his information from nurses I worked with in Blackburn. It was also associated with Burnley Victoria for SRN training,  but I later worked with an SEN who told me that BVH and all the little hospitals were merged into an SEN training school.  This also closed at the end of the 80s, when the small hospitals were closed and BVH was used for Radiotherapy.  Interestingly,  BVH had some ROUND  wards!  A pity I never saw it.

Marsden Hospital was quite a large Fever and TB hospital in Burnley itself.  It offered RFN training in the early 60s but as Seacroft Hospital was the last hospital to offer Fever training in 1967, it cannot have gone on for very much longer.  I don't know if it ever offered BTA training but it seems likely.  At the time I was working in the area, it was a Geriatric hospital in the process of being closed down.

I personally think it is a great mistake to keep merging hospitals into ever bigger units.  First of all, the Valley hospitals were merged with Burnley and BVH closed in favour of BGH.  Then the specialities at Burnley General were shut down and transferred to Blackburn (although it remained open for general medicine and surgery).

Then at Blackburn, the Royal Infirmary, where I worked on the Children's Surgical Ward, Ward 8, a perfectly good hospital, where many wards,  all the theatres and the A & E had been modernised in the early 90s, was  closed and moved to a new hospital at Queens Park in 2006.  Of the outlying hospitals, Clitheroe remained open for Geriatrics and  Accrington remained open for ESMI, general outpatients and physio.  But Blackburn is now losing its specialities to Hope Hospital in Salford, over 20 miles away, about 35 from Colne.