2020 International Year of the Nurse and the Midwife!

Nursing Studies are collaborators with the Nursing Now global campaign. Head of Nursing Studies Aisha Holloway will be leading a programme of research, the evaluation of the Nursing Now campaign and the work of the 'State of the World's Nursing' Report.

In collaboration with the World Health Organization and International Council of Nurses, Nursing Now aims to improve health globally by raising the profile of nurses.

It will help nurses access better education and training while supporting them to share research and evidence of effective practice. It aims to influence policymakers and support nurses themselves to lead, learn and build a global movement.

The Nightingale Challenge was unveiled at the ICN conference in Singapore, it asks every health employer around the world to provide leadership and development training for a group of their young nurses and midwives. Head of Nursing Studies Professor Aisha Holloway is leading work to evaluate the initiative’s success.

Professor Holloway has been appointed by Nursing Now as its Programme Lead: Evidence for Effective Practice. In her role, she will evaluate the wider campaign, lead a programme of research and report on the state of nursing around the world.

Read the press release here

In May 2019, 23 young nurses and midwives from around the world were invited to Geneva to participate in Nursing Now’s pre-World Health Assembly. 

Ciaran McHugh was one of the nurses who attended, "Three weeks ago, I travelled to Geneva to participate in Nursing Now’s pre-WHA workshop with 22 other young nurses and midwives from around the world. There we forged a life-long bond over our shared passion for nursing and mutual ambitions to become young leaders and advocates for our profession."

"Over the course of the week that we spent in Geneva, we had the opportunity to meet Dr. Tedros Adhanom, Director General of the World Health Organization (WHO) and Elizabeth Iro, Chief Nursing Officer, WHO. I couldn’t believe that we were able to meet and talk with such senior people, and that they were so normal and welcoming. As hard as it is to believe, they were as excited to meet us"

Read the full story on the Nursing Now website

Nursing Now has six programme areas to enable us to achieve our campaign goal of improving global health by raising the profile and status of nursing worldwide.

• Universal Health Coverage: Universal health coverage (UHC) is a human right, and yet at least 400 million people do not have access to essential health services. In order to achieve UHC, it is crucial that governments invest in nursing and enable nurses to achieve their full potential.

• Evidence of impact: In order to influence health policy and service delivery, so that nurses are enabled to have an even bigger impact on global health, we will need to present significant evidence of nursing’s contribution to health, economic development and gender equity. Our very own Aisha Holloway will be the Programme Lead for Evidence of impact, leading a programme of research, the evaluation of the Nursing Now campaign and the 'State of the World's Nursing' Report.

• Leadership and development: More needs to be done to support nurses as leaders in both policy and practice. It is not enough to elevate nurses to positions of responsibility; they also need to be given the support and training required to take on these roles successfully.

• Sharing effective practice: High levels of innovation drive the nursing profession. Nursing Now is committed to publicising the best examples of innovation and effective practice and will work with the World Health Organization, International Council of Nurses and others to develop better ways of disseminating and improving access to existing collections of effective practice.

• 2020: 2020 will be the year of the nurse and the midwife. This is a once in a generation opportunity to put nurses and midwives at the centre of global and national health policy and to celebrate what nurses and midwives do to improve health and health care in their communities and across the world.

• Nightingale Challenge: As part of Nursing Now’s work to promote the role of nurses and raise the profile and status of nursing around the world, Nursing Now will launch the Nightingale Challenge in June 2019. The Nursing Now campaign is working with partners to champion influential leadership roles for nurses and midwives. Nursing Studies will be undertaking the research to evaluate the Nightingale Challenge. 

Read more about the Nursing Now programmes on their website