During the 1940s the hospital began to be used for teaching orthopaedic nursing, with a two-year training program which led into a three-year registered nursing course at the Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh. This system lasted until 1978, when the teaching of orthopaedic nursing was restructured to be a post-registration course. On the foundation of the National Health Service in Scotland in 1948, the Princess Margaret passed into state management, grouped with the Edinburgh Central Hospitals.
