Queen Alexandra's Royal Army Nursing Corps (QARANC) nurses have worked at the sharp end of military life throughout the last century. Nursing Officers, Nursing Soldiers, Healthcare Assistants and Student Nurses of the QARANC deliver a high quality, adaptable and dedicated nursing care wherever the Army needs it.
Army nurses and healthcare assistants can find themselves working in a variety of settings. These can vary from NHS hospitals with military units, to ground based environments such as medical regiments and field hospitals.
QA personnel deal with a wide range of medical situations, with civilian and military patients in the UK, to military casualties of war and conflict. Work locations vary between clinical roles, instructional positions at training bases and other interesting jobs such as recruiting.
Currently Army nurses are based and deployed in the UK, Germany, Cyprus, Canada, Poland, Brunei, Nepal, Kenya and Sierra Leone.
History
Florence Nightingale formed the first nucleus of a recognised Nursing Service for the Army in the Crimean War, 1854. Following the war she fought to institute the employment of women nurses in military hospitals and by 1860 she had succeeded in establishing an Army Training School for military nurses at the Royal Victoria Hospital, Netley.