ABSTRACT
The 1960s, the period in which the values of British society were radically altered, was also the period for nursing in which the apprenticeship system and its ethos came under sustained attack. This culminated in the Briggs Report of 1972 which set in train the break with the tradition. It sought to develop a career progression away from the bedside into education, management and research. This involved a movement away from the apprenticeship method of learning: a massive shift away from the long-standing practical tradition of bedside care This chapter examines the sociological and psychological influences on change, and review the evidence and arguments used in its support. Previously unexamined evidence raises the central question, the extent to which the sea-change in nursing was justified. By the early 1960s rigorous routines, the safeguard of patient care, and the basis of apprenticeship training, were argued to have become rigid and restrictive.
