Claire Chatterton is based in Manchester in England, where she works for the Open University as a Staff Tutor.

She is currently Chair of the Royal College of Nursing’s History of Nursing Society.

She trained as a general nurse at The London Hospital and as a mental health nurse at Littlemore and the Warneford Hospitals, Oxford. She studied for her first degree, in Social Science and Administration, at the University of London (Goldsmiths College) and also did a Masters there, in Social Policy.

While nursing in Oxford she became interested in the history of mental health nursing and undertook a Masters degree in Historical Studies at Oxford Brookes University.

She later undertook her PhD at the University of Salford investigating recruitment and retention in mental health nursing.

She is now a full time academic at the Open University having previously taught at Oxford Brookes University and the Universities of Brighton and Salford.