Educational entry requirements for nurse registration: an historical perspective.

This paper examines the changing values in the General Nursing Council for England and Wales between the days before the National Health Service and the time when the minimum educational level for entrants to student nurse training was reinstituted in 1962. It discusses why the entry level was set at two ordinary levels of the General Certificate of Education, lower than the standard before the 1939 World War. The paper ends by arguing that the GNC became an agent of the government for the recruitment of nurses and the deskilling of nursing.