Celebrations for 100 years of nursing in Jersey

Veronica Filleul (left) and Hilary Bullock (right) have fond memories of their time working together

Jersey health department is celebrating 100 years of nursing education.

The island was given accreditation to train new nurses in 1924.

As part of the centenary, an exhibition full of memorabilia has been held in the education rooms of Jersey General Hospital.

Moira Journeaux from the health department said she is "really proud" they now provide training for student nurses through to postgraduate degrees.

Both Hilary Bullock and Veronica Filleul trained as nurses in 1959 and have fond memories of their time working together.

'Discipline and cleanliness'

Hillary, 84, said: "It was wonderful. We had a very happy time here."

"When I came there were a lot of nurses here from Ireland, Wales and Scotland," she told BBC Radio Jersey.

"We lived in a nurses' home, which has now been converted into offices. In there we had a recreation room, and even though we were all away from home we had a wonderful social life."

Dr Moyra Journeaux said she was "really proud" of the training opportunities now on offer to nurses

Veronica said they spent their first six months cleaning.

"The morale was top notch and everyone helped one another. We worked hard, enjoyed it, and loved looking after people.

"There was a lot of heavy work, and our first six months was spent cleaning, but generally we learned about discipline and cleanliness."

Moira Journeaux, postgraduate programme manager, said: "We're really proud of what we've achieved over the years.

"We've gone from student nurses right through to masters [degrees] in advanced practice who go into advanced practice roles."

An exhibition full of memorabilia has been held in the education rooms of Jersey General Hospital

Speaking about the rules previously enforced decades before compared to now, Ms Journeaux said their students "are a very different profile now".

"We can't imagine our students today living by those [older] rules because our students are a very different profile.

"Then they would have been much younger coming straight from school into nursing, but nowadays, alongside our school leavers, we have more mature students who decide to come into nursing later in life."