Interviews of Moira Anderson aged 66

Biographical interview with Moira Anderson (b. 1948, Dumfries) who has always lived in Dumfries. This interview is largely about Moira's time in nursing and, after a brief biography of her early life, she explains that she went into nursing from school and qualified as a staff nurse in 1969. Her training and early career were at the old Dumfries Infirmary (now known as Nithbank) and later, after she had her family, she returned to Nithbank as a night sister. In 1983, Moira became a district nurse, completing her training at Bell College in Hamilton. She went into nurse management on secondment for a year but this turned into 19 years, until her retirement in 2008.

Moira talks in detail about her nursing career and shares information about: nursing practice on the wards; the staffing structure and hierarchy; changes in ward layout - with a move away from the Nightingale wards to more individual spaces for patients; Christmas on the wards and community nursing provision. Towards the end of the interview she reflects on the biggest changes she has seen in nursing during her career. She was proud of the profession and happy to see that increased professional training for nurses meant that they were now a more integral part of the patient care team, she was concerned that nursing staff need to protect the basics of nursing care, e.g. patient's personal care.