title: An historical perspective on the treatment of vocation in the Briggs Report (1972).
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  To examine the vocational ideal in the Briggs Report (Briggs 1972), its evidence, context and interpretation.
  
  
  BACKGROUND
  As recently argued in Journal of Clinical Nursing, twentieth century reports have misrepresented nursing. This paper considers this argument in relation to the Briggs Report and its understanding of vocation.
  
  
  METHODS
  Sources consulted: nursing periodicals 1960-1975, nursing textbooks 1937-1971, the Briggs Report, research studies on nursing 1961-1971, secondary works on nursing history. Included are three newly discovered major primary sources.
  
  
  METHODS
  An historiographical analysis of archival sources which interrogates primary and secondary evidence to make transparent interconnection, coherence, consistency and reliability.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Despite evidence from its own commissioned data that vocation was an important motivating factor, the Briggs Report recommended a new nursing model.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The concept of vocation in nursing has been commonly interpreted as a cultural tool hindering the subsequent development of nursing. This approach has been a driver for policy decisions in nursing. Despite its own evidence, the Briggs Committee recommended far reaching changes, accepted by government and implemented over the following decade as Project 2000. The concept of vocation warrants further scholarship.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Whether the historical ideal of vocation remains important, negatively or positively, to the attitudes, values and motivations of the clinical nurse and the quality of patient care, is a relevant and significant issue for contemporary UK and international nursing practice and policy.
authors.affiliation: Oxford Brookes University, School of Health and Social Care, Marston, Oxford, UK. aebradshaw@brookes.ac.uk
authors.forename: Ann
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Bradshaw
mesh_terms: D006676:History of Nursing; D049673:History, 20th Century; D006801:Humans; D016294:Models, Nursing; D009790:Occupations / Q000266:history*; D013222:State Medicine; D006113:United Kingdom