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International nursing event to mark Florence Nightingale bicentenary

Nightingale2020 conference will explore how nurses can transform global health and care

Nightingale2020 conference will explore how nurses can transform global health and care


The Nightingale2020 conference will be held at the Excel Centre London. Picture: Alamy

A major international nursing conference in London on how nurses can transform global health and care will commemorate the bicentenary of Florence Nightingale’s birth next year.

The Nightingale2020 conference, organised by the Florence Nightingale Foundation, will be held from 26-28 October 2020 at the ExCel Centre London.

Nursing Standard is a partner in the event, which will host more than 150 workshops, presentations and practical demonstrations.

Challenge outdated practices

Florence Nightingale Foundation chair Yvonne Moores said: ‘Nurses make up the largest healthcare workforce in the world and have valuable experience and insight that should be used to transform the way we deliver health and care in the future. We will use Florence Nightingale’s example to challenge outdated practices and let the voice of nurses be heard in international health policy.’

The programme covers four broad themes: 

  • Celebrating the impact nurses have on patient care and health and care systems.
  • World health: nurse-led primary care solutions and nursing in refugee health, veteran health and theatres of war.
  • Professionalism: leadership and reaching clinical parity for nurses in training and career support.
  • Health tech: patient-centred care through digital technology; evidence based care through data analytics; genomics and life-sciences and ensuring the nursing workforce is digitally literate.

Nursing Now insights

The World Health Assembly is expected to declare 2020 as the official Year of the Nurse and Midwife.

Nursing Now, a collaboration between the World Health Organisation and the International Council of Nursing, will present learning and insights at the event from its international campaign to improve health globally by raising the profile of nursing.

Nursing Now executive director Barbara Stilwell said: ‘Nightingale2020 will be a wonderful celebration of the legacy of Florence Nightingale, who was an influential and disruptive leader and the first woman member of the Royal Society of Statisticians.’

A scientific committee will open for papers and submissions on 1 September 2019.


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