Nurses Registration Act 1919
| Jurisdiction | UK Non-devolved |
| Citation | 1919 c. 94 |
Nurses Registration Act, 1919
(9 & 10 Geo. 5.) CHAPTER 94.
An Act to provide for the Registration of Nurses for the Sick.
[23rd December 1919]
B E it enacted by the King's most Excellent Majesty, by and with the advice and consent of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal, and Commons, in this present Parliament assembled, and by the authority of the same, as follows:
1 Establishment and constitution of General Nursing Council.
(1) For the purposes of this Act, there shall be established a General Nursing Council for England and Wales (in this Act referred to as ‘the Council’), which shall be a body corporate by that name with perpetual succession and a common seal with power to acquire and hold land without licence in mortmain.
(2) The Council shall be constituted in accordance with the provisions contained in the Schedule to this Act.
(3) The seal of the Council shall be authenticated in the prescribed manner and any document purporting to be sealed with the said seal so authenticated shall be receivable in evidence of the particulars stated in that document.
2 Register of nurses.
(1) It shall be the duty of the Council to form and keep a register of nurses for the sick (in this Act referred to as ‘the register’) subject to and in accordance with the provisions of this Act.
(2) The register shall consist of the following parts:—
(a ) a general part containing the names of all nurses who satisfy the conditions of admission to that part of the register:
(b ) a supplementary part containing the names of male nurses:
(c ) a supplementary part containing the names of nurses trained in the nursing and care of persons suffering from mental diseases:
(d ) a supplementary part containing the names of nurses trained in the nursing of sick children:
(e ) any other prescribed part.
Where any person satisfies the conditions of admission to any supplementary or prescribed part of the register, his name may be included in that part of the register notwithstanding that it is also included in the general part.
(3) A certificate under the seal of the Council duly authenticated in the prescribed manner stating that any person is, or was at any date, or is not, or was not at any date, duly registered under this Act shall be conclusive evidence in all courts of law of the fact stated in the certificate.
(4) Any reference in this Act to the register shall, unless the context otherwise requires, be deemed to include a reference to any part of the register, and the expression ‘registered’ shall be construed accordingly.
3 Rules.
(1) The Council shall make rules for the following purposes:—
(a ) for regulating the formation, maintenance and publication of the register;
(b ) for regulating the conditions of admission to the register;
(c ) for regulating the conduct of any examinations which may be prescribed as a condition of admission to the register, and any matters ancillary to or connected with any such examinations;
(d ) for prescribing the causes for which, the conditions under which, and the manner in which nurses may be removed from the register, the procedure for the restoration to the register of nurses who have been removed therefrom, and the fee to be payable on such restoration;
(e ) for regulating the summoning of meetings of the Council and the proceedings (including quorum) of the Council;
(f ) for enabling the Council to constitute committees and for authorising the delegation to committees of any of the powers of the Council, and for regulating the proceedings (including quorum) of committees;
(g ) generally for making provision with respect to any matters with respect to which the council think that provision should be made for the purpose of carrying this Act into effect (including provision with respect to the issue of certificates to nurses registered under this Act and with respect to the uniform or badge which may be worn by nurses so registered), and for prescribing anything which under this Act is to be prescribed.
(2) Rules under this section shall contain provisions—
(a ) requiring as a condition of the admission of any person to the register that that person shall have undergone the prescribed training, and shall possess the prescribed experience, in the nursing of the sick; and
(b ) requiring that the prescribed training shall be carried out either in an institution approved by the Council in that behalf or in the service of the Admiralty, the Army Council, or the Air Council; and
(c ) enabling persons who, within a period of two years after the date on which the rules to be made under the provisions of this paragraph first come into operation, make an application in that behalf (in this Act referred to as ‘an existing nurse's application’), to be admitted to the register on producing evidence to the satisfaction of the Council that they are of good character, are of the prescribed age, are persons who were for at least three years before the first day of November, nineteen hundred and nineteen, bon fide engaged in practice as nurses in attendance on the sick under conditions which appear to the Council to be satisfactory for the purposes of this provision and have adequate knowledge and experience of the nursing of the sick.
(3) Rules made under this section shall not come into operation unless and until they are approved by the Minister of Health.
(4) Every rule made under this section shall be laid before each House of Parliament forthwith, and, if an address is presented to His Majesty by either House of Parliament within the next subsequent twenty-one days on which that House has sat next after any such rule is laid before it praying that the rule may be annulled or modified, His Majesty in Council may annul or modify the rule, and, if annulled, it shall thenceforth be void, and, if modified, it shall thenceforth have effect as so modified, but without prejudice to the validity of anything previously done thereunder.
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