The National Archives does not hold patients' records and is not the best place to find information about doctors or nurses. However, this guide will help you find the doctors and nurses records that we do hold, most of which relate to the administration and policy of health services, as well as records from other archives. There are many sources of information about medical staff, most of which are in other archives, although not all records survive. Most surviving records from hospitals are in local archives.
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What do I need to know before I start?
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Try to find out:
- the full name of the patient, doctor or nurse
- the hospital they worked or were treated in
- approximate dates of employment or treatment
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What records can I see online?
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Medical registers (1859-1959)
Search UK Medical Registers on Ancestry.co.uk (£There may be a charge for accessing this information. Searching indexes may be free.) for lists of doctors with their residence, qualification and date of registration.
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What records can I find at The National Archives at Kew?
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Records of the General Nursing Council for England and Wales (c1860-1984)
For rolls and registers of nurses maintained by the General Nursing Council consult:- the printed nominal indexes in DT 10/1-56 to locate records in DT 10 (1921-1973)
- the printed nominal indexes in DT 11/1-9 to locate records in DT 11 (1944-1973)
- DT 12 (1973-1983) - the records in DT 12/24-26 are not on a readable format
Although the Register in DT 10 was opened in 1921 it includes details of nurses who had qualified previous to this.
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Records of midwives (1872-1983)
Browse the midwives rolls by year in DV 7 in our catalogue.
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Records of medical staff in Poor Law Unions and workhouses (1833-1921)
Browse the registers in MH 9 (1837-1921) and the correspondence and papers in MH 12 (1833-1909) in our cataloguea search tool with descriptions of tens of millions of documents from the UK central government, law courts, and other national bodies for records of nurses and matrons working for the Poor Law Unions and in the workhouses.
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To access these records you will either need to visit us, commission research (£there will be a charge) or, where you can identify a specific record referencea unique set of letters and numbers identifying a document in The National Archives, order a copy (£there will be a charge).
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What records can I find in other archives and organisations?
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Wellcome Library
Visit the Wellcome Library to view records of the Queen's Nursing Institute (1887-1997), including lists of names submitted for appointment as Queen's Nurses (1891-1969) and badge registers (1907-1945).
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London Metropolitan Archives
Contact London Metropolitan Archives for records of London training schools for nurses, including Guy's Hospital and the Nightingale Training School.
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Lambeth Palace Library
Browse the name index to medical licences issued by the Archbishop of Canterbury from 1535 to 1775 and held by Lambeth Palace Library.
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What other resources will help me find information?
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Websites
Search the Hospital Records Database to find information on the location of hospital records, including those about staff and patients, in the UK.
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Consult the genealogy and research advice on the Royal College of Nursing website for advice on finding records of nurses.
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Visit the website of the Royal British Nurses Association for general information on the history of nursing.
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Explore the Queen's Nursing Institute's District Nursing 150 website for historical accounts of district nursing and nurses.
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Search Munk's Roll on the Royal College of Physicians website for obituaries of Fellows of the Royal College of Physicians dating back to the founding of the college.
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Hospitals
British Army nurses
Asylum inmates