Doreen Norton

Doreen Norton (1922 to 2007) was an English nurse whose research changed how pressure sores are prevented and treated. Born in Dartford, Kent, she trained as a nurse at St Charles Hospital in London and qualified in 1946. While working at the Whittington hospital she showed that the effective answer to bed sores was to relieve pressure by turning patients regularly, rather than the spirits and massage then in use, and published the work in 1962 as An Investigation of Geriatric Nursing Problems in Hospital, which was considered seminal. She helped design the adjustable King's Fund bed, was a founder of the Research Society of the Royal College of Nursing in 1959, was first chairman of the Society of Geriatric Nursing, and later held a research fellowship at Edinburgh and a visiting professorship in gerontological nursing in Ohio. She was made a Fellow of the Royal College of Nursing in 1976 and an OBE in 1977.