Abstract
The Panel of Assessors for District Nurse Training (Panel) existed during the period 1959 - 1983, as a national training body for district nursing. Initially, its remit was for England and Wales but in 1969 this was extended to the United Kingdom. The Panel owed its existence to the introduction of the National Health Service and the political climate which existed in the late 1940's and early 1950's. Its presence contributed to the demise of the Queen's Institute of District Nursing and the Ranyard Nurses as district nurse training bodies. For the period 1959 - 1979 the Panel was accountable to the relevant Government Department. From 1979 onwards it functioned as an independent training body. The Panel's demise resulted from the 1979 Nurses, Midwives and Health Visitors Act which replaced nine existing training bodies with the United Kingdom Central Council for Nursing, Midwifery and Health Visiting and the four National Boards. Over the years the Panel's responsibilities were enlarged to include the education and training of district enrolled nurses, district nurse tutors, practical work teachers, supervisors of supervised practice. Increasingly the Panel became drawn into developments initiated by other organisations. These included: community nursing experience in general nurse training; interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary training for members of the Primary Health Care Teams. Practice nurses and community psychiatric nurses were not eligible for district nurse training, therefore training programmes were developed to meet their specialist needs. The Panel was represented on the Steering Group which developed the practice nurse curriculum. The Panel became increasingly involved with research projects, first as a result of its contacts with Higher Education and then because of the appointment of its Research Officers. During the 1970's and 1980's the Panel was politically active in its bid to safeguard district nursing interests, especially to ensure its successor bodies had a District Nursing Joint Committee.