Using the Royal College of Nursing (RCN) Library and Archive collections, a RCN History of Nursing Forum (HONF) group of volunteers joined together in 2022 to begin to write nurses back into public history on Wikipedia.

Wikipedia is an international, volunteer written, encyclopaedia in which articles about men greatly outnumber women. Of the articles about notable individuals, women only make up 20%. Nurses and nursing, a predominantly but not exclusively female profession, therefore, are often missing from the history of health care on Wikipedia. 

This online HONF volunteer group, known as ‘Nurses in Red’, is supported by both the Professional Lead for History of Nursing Wikimedian who advise on research, writing and editing Wikipedia entries.

Since the project started we have added 76 new articles about UK nurses and health care, improved 565 existing articles by adding nursing history to them and had over 19 million public views of our articles.  Our January 2025 blog shared the some of the volunteers experiences on the project Nurses in red.

In 2023, The HONF Nurses in Red project won the UK Wikipedian award for Partnership of the Year. In 2024 Nurses in Red presented their work at the UK Association of the History of Nursing colloquium and published it in the UKAHN Bulletin Just a Nurse – The UKAHN Bulletin: ISSN 2049-9744.

One HONF member,Sarah Rogers, received a commendation as Forum member of the year at the RCN Congress 2025 for her significant contribution to this RCN forum project. 

The group meet once a month online to share their editing, get advice and help and discuss nurses in history. About once a year we run introductory sessions, inviting HONF members to join the group but there are also ways to join Nurses in Red all year. If you are interested in joining the project email honf@rcn.org.uk

Vari Drennan
HONF Steering Group lead for Nurses in Red

June 2025