The Duchess of Cambridge has released a letter marking the first anniversary of the Nursing Now campaign, of which she is patron.
“I am delighted that, at the end of its first year, Nursing Now has grown internationally, with local and national groups in over 60 countries.
“Nurses play a vital role in health teams all around the world, and this campaign is doing an important job of raising their status and profile globally.”
Nursing Now is a three-year campaign that aims to raise awareness of the profession in collaboration with the International Council of Nurses and the World Health Organization. It ends in 2020, on the 200th anniversary of Florence Nightingale’s birth.
“We aim to improve perceptions of nurses, enhance their influence and maximise their contributions to ensuring that everyone everywhere has access to health and healthcare,” reads the campaign’s official website.
By the end of 2020, the campaign organisers say that they hope to achieve the following five outcomes:
- Greater investment in improving education, professional development, standards, regulation and employment conditions for nurses.
- Increased and improved dissemination of effective and innovative practice in nursing.
- Greater influence for nurses and midwives on global and national health policy, as part of broader efforts to ensure health workforces are more involved in decision-making.
- More nurses in leadership positions and more opportunities for development at all levels.
- More evidence for policy and decision makers about: where nursing can have the greatest impact, what is stopping nurses from reaching their full potential and how to address these obstacles.
Kate’s letter continues:
“The dedication and professionalism of nurses is awe-inspiring. It is wonderful news that the World Health Organisation Executive Board has announced that 2020 will be the ‘Year of the Nurse and Midwife.’ This is a fitting celebration of the 20 million nurses worldwide and we hope that more young people will be attracted into nursing careers to ensure that the principle that health is for everyone, everywhere, becomes a reality.”
In February 2018, Kate became Nursing Now’s patron during its launch at St. Thomas’s Hospital in London where she remarked that, ” I was surprised to learn that to keep pace with the rising global demand, the world will need an additional 9 million nurses by 2030.
“In simple terms, that’s about 2,000 more nurses every day for the next 12 years. This shows that we must act now to support and develop nurses with the skills and talent to cope with the future global health needs. ‘Nursing Now’ is a call to raise the profile of nursing internationally and to help grow the profession further so it can play a key role in meeting real health challenges across the world.”
She also touched upon her own views of nursing in that speech and revealed that her great-grandmother and grandmother were volunteer nurses.
“From what I have seen from visits to hospices and hospitals across the country, nurses are always there. You care for us from the earliest years. You look after us in our happiest and saddest times. And, for many, you look after us and our families, at the end of our lives.”
