ABSTRACT
The recent history of nursing care is considered but exact dates cannot be given, for advances in one discipline spread at different rates as they are adapted and modified to suit another discipline. Intensive nursing, one nurse for each patient, with a team of nurses providing 24 hour cover every day, developed in cardiothoracic surgery. After open heart surgery on cardiopulmonary bypass or extracorporeal circulation (using a pump to provide a circulation and oxygenation of blood outside the body), expertise in intensive nursing care was acquired. The expertise was adapted for general surgical use in a district general hospital (DGH) and the intensive care unit (ICU) was established. The same expertise was adapted for general medical use in a DGH when the coronary care unit (CCU) was established. Progress continues and nursing proposals for the next century (called Project 2000) are well advanced. However, questions regarding the type of nurse required and the number of each sort are far from settled: see ‘Back to the wards for nurse training’ (1999) The Times, 19 January, p 23.
