Scrubs style history: When dresses were the dress code

The fit

From experience I can tell you that the dress was quite “fitted” (part, I think, of its effect on my husband!). When fully zipped at the back, it was often quite difficult to move in (especially making beds, etc.). Many of the girls would unzip the top of the rear zip for a few inches to allow for more movement.

The students

Interestingly, the exact same dress design was used for all grades of nurses, differing only in colour (and sometimes accessories). At most hospitals, student nurses wore a white dress, SENs wore a stone dress (though at some hospitals, auxiliaries wore stone and SENs wore dark green), SRN/RGNs wore a cornflower blue dress and Sisters wore a navy blue dress with a white collar.

The new and improved(?) dress

My understanding is that when the rest of England (I am not sure what happened in Scotland or Wales) moved to the check national uniform dress in the early ’70s, the Northern NHS region opted for the rear-zip style of dress as its “national uniform” and, despite its impracticalities, its rate of acceptance seems to have been better than with the “other” national uniform. As such, it was worn throughout the Northern NHS region, including hospitals in Newcastle, Sunderland and Middlesborough. At Middlesborough hospitals, it was often accompanied by Petersham belts and cuffs, making it, I would imagine, even harder to move in.

The legacy of the Newcastle dress

With the advent of the NHS trusts during the mid-’90s, individual hospitals began to move away from the Newcastle dress, though it seems to have been preserved for a time by a number of nursing schools.

What do you remember about wearing a nurse’s dress?