{{Infobox medical person
| honorific_prefix =
| name = Eileen Skellern | birth_name = Flora Eileen Skellern | birth_date = 14 June 1923 | birth_place = [[Stone, Staffordshire]] | death_date = 29 August 1980 | death_place = | death_cause = | education = [[Retford High School for Girls]] | occupation = Psychiatric Nurse, Superintendent of Nursing, Fellow of the [[Royal College of Nursing]] | profession = Nurse | field = Psychiatry | work_institutions = [[Leeds General Infirmary]], [[Cassel Hospital]], [[Belmont Hospital, Tiverton |Belmont Hospital]], [[St Bartholomew’s Hospital]], [[Cheadle Royal Hospital]], [[Bethlem Royal Hospital]]
| notable_works = The Role of the Ward Sister }}
{{Use dmy dates|date=April 2022}} [[File:Eileen Skellern.png|thumb|Eileen Skellern, probably painted by a patient, portrait from [[Bethlem Museum of the Mind]] ]] '''Eileen Skellern''' FRCN (1923–1980) was an English psychiatric nurse who was involved in pioneering psychosocial and psychotherapeutic methods for treating patients. She helped open up new roles for nurses in mental health work, and demonstrated that they could be equal partners in a team, taking personal responsibility for patient care while collaborating with doctors and playing an important part in new developments in therapeutic treatment. While also taking a lead in education, administration and policy development, she did research and published in medical and nursing journals, and was a member of key committees in her field.
== Early life and education ==
Flora Eileen Skellern was born on 14 June 1923 in [[Stone, Staffordshire]] to Flora (''née'' Poole) and Willis Arthur Skellern, a commercial traveller. After attending [[Retford High School for Girls]] in [[Nottinghamshire]] she went to train as a nurse at [[Leeds General Infirmary]], qualified in 1944, and worked there, first as a staff nurse, then in 1946 as a sister on a ward where there were some psychiatric patients.<ref name="odnb">David H. Russell, [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/61786 "Skellern, (Flora) Eileen (1923–1980)"], ''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography'', Oxford University Press, 2004</ref>
== The Cassel and Belmont hospitals == [[File:Cassel Hospital, Ham Common.jpg|thumb|The Cassel Hospital in 2013.]] Her introduction to nursing psychiatric patients in Leeds made her interested in modern psychological approaches to care of the mentally unwell.<ref name="odnb" /> The [[Cassel Hospital]] by [[Ham Common, London]] had a reputation for treating patients in a therapeutic environment and she moved there in 1948 to follow their recently developed course in psychosocial treatment and nursing for nervous disorders. Skellern joined the Cassel Social Therapy Unit as a permanent staff member in 1949. There she worked with [[Thomas Main|Tom Main]] on pioneering [[psychotherapeutic]] and [[psychosocial]] treatments. During her time at the Cassel she underwent psychoanalysis herself and observers said she found it easier to collaborate with analytically inclined doctors and nurses.<ref name="coll">Winship, Bray, Repper and Hinshelwood, [http://jrn.sagepub.com/content/14/6/505 "Collective biography and the legacy of Hildegard Peplau, Annie Altschul and Eileen Skellern; the origins of mental health nursing and its relevance to the current crisis in psychiatry ], ''Journal of Research in Nursing'', November 2009, pp. 505–517.</ref>
In 1952–53 she wrote a report for the [[Royal College of Nursing]], ''The Role of the Ward Sister''. It was based on numerous visits to hospitals and was funded by a scholarship grant given for a study of the “practical application to ward administration of modern methods in the instruction and handling of staff and student nurses”.<ref>Marjorie Simpson, [http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1365-2648.1977.tb00449.x/abstract "The Royal College of Nursing of the United Kingdom 1916–1976: role and action in a changing health service"], ''Journal of Advanced Nursing'', 1977</ref> It was "the first serious piece of nursing research done in England by a psychiatric nurse".<ref name="odnb" />
In 1953 she went to the Belmont Hospital, [[Sutton, London|Sutton]] to be [[Charge nurse|sister in charge]] of its [[Psychiatric rehabilitation|Social Rehabilitation]] Unit catering for 100 patients.<ref name="bio" /> Here the psychiatrist was [[Maxwell Jones]]. Together they developed [[therapeutic community]] initiatives which laid the foundations for significant advances in psychiatric nursing.<ref name="odnb" /> Skellern established that interactions with nurses could be crucial in preparing patients to return to their home communities. As well as supporting rehabilitation through one-to-one relationships, nurses could undertake family and group work. Skellern and Jones worked with others to develop group methods for helping patients return to society.<ref name="bio">David Russell, [http://www.skellern.info/russellessay.html ''Eileen Skellern – A Biographical essay'']</ref> They proceeded as equals in forming conclusions about their therapies and treatments. Both published articles about their work, and Skellern's papers have been described as giving a "definitive picture of the new developments in psychiatric nursing in the 1950s".<ref name="odnb" /> She herself was "prominent" in "laying the foundation of [this] style of psycho-social nursing".<ref name="obit">Miss Eileen Skellern (obituary), ''The Times'', 19 August 1980, p. 12</ref> While she was in charge she collaborated with a team of anthropologists and social scientists who were studying the Unit.<ref name="bio" /> It became the Henderson Hospital not long after Skellern left, and the Jones-Skellern ideas were carried forward there.<ref name="bio" /><ref>[http://ezitis.myzen.co.uk/henderson.html Henderson Hospital]</ref>
== Later career == [[File:Bethlem Royal Hospital Main building view 1.jpg|thumb|Bethlem Royal Hospital in 2011]] From 1957 to 1959 she studied at the Royal College of Nursing to qualify as a registered nurse teacher (RNT) and worked as sister tutor for the next two years at [[St Bartholomew's Hospital]]. She went to [[Cheadle Royal Hospital]] in Cheshire to qualify as a registered mental nurse (RMN). From then on Skellern was always based in the London area and moved to the [[Bethlem Royal Hospital|Bethlem Royal]] and [[Maudsley Hospital|Maudsley]] in 1963 to be Superintendent of Nursing, a post to which she had been appointed before her studies in Cheshire. Here she helped establish a therapeutic community unit;<ref name="coll" /> she was rarely "far away from the idea of therapeutic communities" despite the many different aspects of her work.<ref name="coll" />
She was a good teacher<ref name="odnb" /><ref>Dennie Briggs, [https://books.google.com/books?id=Hw0QBQAAQBAJ ''A Life Well Lived: Maxwell Jones – a Memoir''], Jessica Kingsley Publishers 2002, p. 21</ref> and was innovative in developing curricula for psychiatric nurse education using group methods. The students' clinical experience was central to their training and was explicitly linked to their classroom work. This approach was in tune with that of [[Elliott Jaques]], professor of social sciences at [[Brunel University]], whose students went on industrial placements as part of their course. Jacques and Skellern collaborated on the first course ever to combine nursing with social sciences, and developed a joint nursing certificate and degree course which, from 1968, was offered half at the Maudsley and half at Brunel.<ref name="odnb" /> Another educational innovation was also a collaboration: this time with [[Isaac Marks]] of the [[Institute of Psychiatry]]. In 1973 he and Skellern set up a behavioural psychotherapy course for experienced nurses, which has been seen as an important step in recognising the potential of nurses to act as therapists.<ref name="odnb" />
Skellern's title of Superintendent changed to Chief Nursing Officer in 1972 as [[National Health Service|NHS]] management was restructured. She used her leadership and experience to support colleagues, and was `seen as a fair manager with a warm manner and an understanding of the needs of hospital clinical staff at all levels.<ref name="odnb" /><ref name="obit" /> She took on a considerable amount of committee work including work for the [[King's Fund]] health think tank, and membership of a working party chaired by the [[secretary of state for health]] [[Richard Crossman]] investigating problems in closed institutions for the mentally handicapped. Since Crossman's advisor, [[Brian Abel-Smith]], was a friend she was able to make valuable contributions in private as well as more publicly.<ref>Sally Sheard, [https://books.google.com/books?id=qkYbAgAAQBAJ&pg=PA237 ''The Passionate Economist: How Brian Abel-Smith shaped global health and social welfare''], Policy Press 2013, p. 237</ref> She was awarded an [[OBE]] in 1972, the year the resulting report was published.
In the 1970s she developed cancer but continued to work as much as she could until taking early retirement in 1980, not long before she died on 29 July 1980. In September 1980 the first International Psychiatric Nursing Congress was held, an event which she had been planning for two years. Two days before she died she learned that she had been made a [[Fellow of the Royal College of Nursing]].<ref name="obit" /><ref>[https://www.rcn.org.uk/get-involved/rcn-awards Fellows of the RCN – roll of honour] </ref> An Eileen Skellern Memorial Lecture series in her honour began in 1982. Among the speakers in the 1980s were [[Annie Altschul]] and [[Caroline Cox]].<ref name="lect">[http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.11jpm.12218/pdf "Skellern Lecture and the Journal of Psychiatric and Mental Health Nursing Lifetime Achievement Award 2015"], ''Journal of Psychiatric and Mental Health Nursing'', 2015, 22, pp. 223–225</ref> From 2006 the lecture has been the occasion for the presentation of a Lifetime Achievement Award, with recipients including [[Jo Brand]], [[Helen Bamber]], [[Shirley Smoyak]] and [[Malcolm Rae]].<ref name="lect" /> She has also been recognised by having a new building at the Maudsley named after her: the only nurse to have been remembered in this way.<ref name="coll" />
== References == {{Reflist}}
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Skellern, Eileen}} [[Category:1923 births]] [[Category:1980 deaths]] [[Category:20th-century English educators]] [[Category:British nursing administrators]] [[Category:British women nurses]] [[Category:People from Stone, Staffordshire]] [[Category:History of mental health in the United Kingdom]] [[Category:Deaths from cancer in England]] [[Category:Fellows of the Royal College of Nursing]] [[Category:Psychiatric nurses]] [[Category:20th-century British nurses]] [[Category:Officers of the Order of the British Empire]]