National and International Role

• Associate (European) Editor, Health Emergency and Disaster Nursing
• Communications' Officer, UK Association for the History of Nursing
• Steering Committee, Royal College of Nursing, History of Nursing Committee
• Chair: Adelaide Nutting Award Panel: American Association for the History of Nursing

School of Health Sciences

• Director of Postgraduate Research

Jane Brooks, PhD, RN is a senior lecturer in the Division of Nursing, Midwifery and Social Work at the University of Manchester, and Director of Postgraduate Research for the School of Health Sciences. She qualified as a Registered Nurse in 1987 and is registered with the NMC as a lecturer of nursing. She was awarded her PhD in 2005 from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. She has published a number of articles and book chapters on nursing work in the Second World War. Her most recent book Negotiating Nursing: British Army Sisters and Soldiers in the Second World War was published by MUP in 2018. She was the 2015 recipient, with Christine Hallett, of the America Association for the History of Nursing, Mary M. Roberts Award for the edited book, One Hundred Years of Wartime Nursing Practices.  In 2014 she received the Monica Baly Bursary from the Royal College of Nursing. Her previous research studies included work on the early university programmes for nurses in the UK between 1918 and 1960 and she has a number of publications based on her oral history study of nurses who cared for older patients in the mid-twentieth century.

• Jewish refugees and the British nursing profession, 1933-1948
• Nursing work and war
• Nursing in the Second World War
• History of caring for the elderly and infirm
• Nursing in Municipal Hospitals
• History of the Special probationer schemes (lady nurses)
• History of university education for nurses in the 20th century

Possible postgraduate research opportunites

• Given the current debates about Nursing Associates, I would be interested in supervising students who wish to research the history of the State Enrolled Nurse - perhaps as an oral history project. Please email me if you think that you would be interested in undertaking such a project

I have a number of PhD students in both the history of nursing and also qualitative methods research

I teach the history of nursing to undergraduate nursing students and PGT

I am a trainer for the Centre for Academic and Researcher Development 

I am a mentor and assessor for Awards for the Higher Education Authority through the UoM LEAP programme

• Historical method (qualitative and quantitative historical research)
• Oral History

• PhD (Nursing)
• MA Healthcare Ethics
• PGDip (Nursing education)
• BA (Hons) Religious Studies
• Registered Nurse

2017 - 2018: Member of UREC 3

2017: Historical expert for Defence Nursing exhibition at RCN headquarters, London (March 2017)

2016: Historical expert for Public Health exhibition at RCN headquarters, London (October 2016)

2014:  Coordinated the School of Nursing, Midwifery and Social Work’s input International Women’s Day celebrations, in association with Athena Swan.  Nursing as a humanitariam endeavour

2013: As Director of the UK Centre for the History of Nursing and Midwifery I was part of a consultation team for the £20 million redevelopment of the History of Medicine exhibition at the Science Museum, London.

2013: Expert witness for The Report of the Investigation into Matters Relating to Savile at Leeds

Previous appointments of national and international organisation that promote the history of nursing:

• 2017-2021 Publications' Chair: American Association for the History of Nursing (AAHN)
• 2011-2016 Deputy Director: UK Centre for the History of Nursing (UKCHN)
• 200-2008 Committee member: Royal College of Nursing, History of Nursing Society