Annie Altschul

Annie Therese Altschul, CBE, BA, MSc, RGN, RMN, RNT, FRCN was Britain's first mental health nurse pioneer; a midwife, researcher, educator, author and a patient advocate, She was five years old when her father was killed in a railway accident. Altschul was studying mathematics at the University of Vienna when she had to leave Austria in March 1939, then coming under Nazi rule. where she found staff and students were more motivated. Altschul's thinking was influenced by John Bowlby

In 1957, Altschul published her perceptions of what mental health nursing should be in her first book Psychiatric Nursing, based on the latest research thinking, with co-authors, publishing in 1994, Altschul's psychiatric and mental nursing.

From 1962 to 1964, Altschul served on the Platt Committee on Nursing Education, for the Royal College of Nursing (RCN). Altschul had taken a sabbatical in 1961–62, visiting the United States, funded by a British Commonwealth for Nurses Scholarship Fund to explore psychiatric nurse education and practices, which influenced her thinking.

In 1964, Altschul left the Maudsley to be a World Health Organisation funded lecturer in the Department of Nursing Studies at the University of Edinburgh, where she became a senior lecturer then professor and head of unit, a leader in (then 'ground breaking') In 1972, Altschul wrote a book Patient-Nurse Interaction, and in 1976 she became Professor and Chair of Nursing Studies. developing nurse education further into post-graduate Masters in Nursing Administration, Nurse Education and Health Education, and expanded research portfolios up to higher levels in nursing and affiliated professions.

Honours/legacy Altschul was one of the first Fellows of the Royal College of Nursing in 1978.

Altschul died on Christmas Eve (24 December) 2001 aged 82, and an obituary remarked that she had "gained academic acclaim for mental health nursing" and "inspired general as well as psychiatric nurses". Another obituary noted that Altschul's "contribution and intellect" was held as being "of the highest order" also "by eminent psychologists and psychiatrists". were considered as making a "defining impact" on Britain's health service.

Altschul played a part in the history of mental health nursing and was described as "one of the most outstanding mental health nurses of the 20th century".