Plans for a blue plaque at Cumberland Infirmary honouring nurse educator Nancy Roper
Cumberland Council to review proposal for commemorating nursing pioneer
It is hoped to place a blue plaque at a listed building at Cumberland Infirmary to commemorate a pioneering educator who was based there until 1963.
The plans, which are supported by the Carlisle and District Civic Trust, have been submitted to Cumberland Council in Newtown Road, Carlisle, by the Cumberland Infirmary Nurses League which is based at the hospital.
According to the proposed plaque Nancy Roper (1918 – 2004) is described as a nurse educator theorist and was a senior nurse tutor at the infirmary between 1948 and 1963.
The proposed design will state she was a pioneer who originated a holistic nursing model used nationally and internationally’ since mid-1970s.
According to a planning report it is hoped to place it above the west door of the Pillars Building at the infirmary facing the main car park.
The report states: "The Pillars Building dates from 1830 and designed by Richard Tattersall in the Greek style however it has been altered extensively in relation to the location of former wards which were to the west of the Pillars main building, now demolished.
"These additions were erected in 1872 to 1874 to plans by Charles J Ferguson. The location of the plaque is to be above the west door as shown by the photographs submitted.
"The mounting is by two plugs and screws to the concrete block portion of the infill west wall. The Pillars Building is Listed Grade II* however where it is being mounted is not original building fabric and is listed by virtue of attachment only."
According to the report when the old wards were demolished to allow hospital expansion the connecting corridor was truncated in order to form a western entrance and steps were laid to achieve the necessary change in level.
It adds: "The steps, door and corridor infill are all non-original 20th Century additional fabric and the 385mm diameter blue plaque will not represent any significance upon the listed building, its setting or its location.
"The western elevation is not how Tattersall conceived it represents currently an unplanned amalgam of style and practical function."
Nancy Roper was born in Wetheral and her initial training was as a registered sick children’s nurse gaining a gold medal at Booth Hall Hospital, in Manchester.
Roper’s model of nursing, which evolved from the work of Virginia Henderson in 1966, was researched together with Winefred Tierney and Alison Logan, was originally published in 1976, and revised in 1985 and 1990, and 1998, and it remains the widely used model of nursing used in the United Kingdom.