Margaret Cooper (nurse)

Margaret Jean Drummond Cooper (1922 to 2013) was an English nurse and nurse tutor who worked to bring theory into the practical training of nurses in Britain. After training at Leicester Royal Infirmary, where she won the hospital gold medal as its best student, she qualified as a midwife at the General Lying-In Hospital and became a nurse tutor at Middlesex Hospital. A Nightingale scholarship let her visit nurse training institutes in Scandinavia, and she came away convinced that theoretical knowledge should be taught alongside supervised practice so that nurses better understood their roles in the National Health Service. She held principal tutor posts at Northampton General Hospital and Addenbrooke's Hospital, became principal of the Queen Elizabeth School of Nursing, and there introduced a curriculum that combined clinical-tutor supervised practice with theory study. From 1974 to 1982 she was chief education officer of the General Nursing Council of England and Wales, where she carried the same curriculum, and in 1980 she received an OBE for services to nurse education. This entry records her career and is not medical advice.