Nurse education qualification courses have graduate status. Traditionally, from the times prior to Florence Nightingale, nursing was seen as an apprenticeship, often undertaken in religious institutes such as convents by young women, although there has always been a proportion of male nurses, especially in mental health services. In 1860 Nightingale set up the first nurse training school at St Thomas' Hospital, London. Nightingale's curriculum was largely base around nursing practice, with instruction focused upon the need for hygiene and task competence. Her methods are reflected in her "Notes on Nursing", (1898). Some other nurses at that time, notably Ethel Gordon Fenwick, were
Florence Nightingale Faculty of Nursing and Midwifery also carries out nursing research, continuing professional development and postgraduate programmes. The Faculty forms part of the Waterloo campus on the South Bank of the River Thames and is now one of the largest faculties in the university. The school is ranked as the number one faculty for nursing in London and in the United Kingdom whilst third in the world rankings and belongs to one of the leading universities in health services, policy and research in the world. A freedom-of-information request in 2015 disclosed that the Florence Nightingale Faculty of Nursing and Midwifery had one of the lowest admission