As part of our International Nurses Day celebrations, Queen’s Nurse Suzanne Turner has written about her experience of attending the Florence Nightingale Commemoration Service in London.
Each year in May, on the birthday of Florence Nightingale – 12 May – we celebrate International Nurses Day. It provides us with an opportunity to recognise, acknowledge, and celebrate all Nurses, for all they do, all year round. In conjunction with this, the Florence Nightingale Foundation host a Florence Nightingale Commemoration Service at Westminster Abbey. This year was the 59th Florence Nightingale Commemoration Service and took place on 15 May 2024 at Westminster Abbey. MoD Defence Primary Health Care Nurses are allocated a number of tickets alongside tri service, NHS Trusts, and the Third sector to name but a few.
I was delighted to see in the 2021 Queen’s Nurse cohort WhatsApp group a message from Kirsty Nelson saying “I think I’m going to Florence Nightingale Commemorative service at Westminster Abbey in May. Parish Nursing UK were given tickets. Has anyone been before?” “Me x2 and will be there this year”, I replied. Lots of discussion ensued about the feasibility of travelling down together, however, that wasn’t possible as I would be travelling from either Inverness or Aberdeen, some four hours from Kirsty.
A few days before, we agreed to meet up at the Abbey and catch up. However, when the guest list is in the region of 2200, it was like trying to find a needle in a haystack. The queues outside stretched around the corner. I was also in a group with my DPHC colleagues. We reached the front of the queue and went through the bag search and were then directed to our seating area. The Abbey was buzzing with chatter as old acquaintances spotted each other across the crowds and new acquaintances were made due to recognition from social media platforms. Westminster Abbey is breathtakingly beautiful and despite having attended the service there previously in 2022, followed by St Paul’s Cathedral in 2023, it never fails to make you stop and gasp!
The service provided a fabulous time to connect, reflect, and peer into the past to understand who we are as nurses and to thank all those who have gone before us.
Amidst the crowds I spotted the familiar QNIS Tartan and my fellow QN Kirsty. She and her colleagues made their way to their seats just a few rows in front of my group.
The service has been held annually at Westminster Abbey since 1965. Central to the commemoration service is the ‘Lamp’. Florence was known as the ‘The lady with the lamp’ as she made her rounds at night whilst tending to the sick and wounded in the Crimean War. The lamp this year was carried by Emily Pimm, a FNF scholar and social care nurse at St Monica Trust. The lamp carrier is escorted by two lamp escorts, and they led a procession of other FNF Scholars and student nurses and midwives. This element of the service signifies the transfer of knowledge through the generations. During the service nurses and midwives named in two Rolls of Honour are remembered. The Commonwealth Roll of Honour commemorates nurses who lost their lives on active service in the Second World War. It is an incredibly moving service and lasts about an hour. At the end of the service the bells of Westminster Abbey peal. What a delightful, joyous sound. The crowds slowly made their way towards the exit. This was an opportunity for a quick catchup with Kirsty, get some photos, and a promise to catch up again soon.
I was fortunate enough to not be travelling back to Aberdeen until the following evening. This presented an opportunity to do some ‘sight-seeing’. A visit to the Florence Nightingale Museum and The Old Operating Theatre. The Florence Nightingale Museum celebrates the life and work of probably the best-known figure in nursing history. This year the Museum has a fantastic small exhibition dedicated to the Flying Nightingales which explores the often-unknown stories of a heroic and remarkable group of WAAF women who were vital to the outcome of World War II. Further details of this fascinating museum can be found here.
A short tube ride away is The Old Operating Theatre, a treasure trove of all things medical, surgical, and nursing. It can be accessed via an extremely narrow 52 step spiral staircase and is not for the faint hearted! The museum is housed in the attic of the early eighteenth-century church of the Old St Thomas’ Hospital and offers a unique insight into the history of medicine and surgery. The original timber-framed Herb Garret was once used to dry and store herbs for patients’ medicines, and in 1822, an operating theatre was installed. Once used for operations that predated anaesthetics and antiseptics, it is the oldest surviving surgical theatre in Europe for female patients. Further details of this fascinating place can be found here.
The service provided a fabulous time to connect, reflect, and peer into the past to understand who we are as nurses and to thank all those who have gone before us. If you get the opportunity to attend in the future, please do so. You won’t be disappointed!
