News

Duchess of Cambridge to launch Nursing Now

Three-year campaign aims to boost the status of nursing around the world
Duchess of Cambs

Three-year campaign aims to boost the status of nursing around the world

Duchess of Cambs
The Duchess of Cambridge is to launch an international campaign to boost the profile
and status of the nursing profession around the world. Picture: Getty

Nursing Now is a global project that aims to put nurses at the heart of the debate about tackling health challenges in the 21st Century.

Run jointly by the International Council of Nurses (ICN) and the World Health Organisation (WHO), it will assist nurses into policymaking and leadership roles, as well as into supporting development and leadership programmes.

Launch events will take place across the globe on 27 February, with the UK’s taking place at St Thomas’ Hospital in London. It will be attended by WHO chief nursing officer Elizabeth Iro and ICN president Annette Kennedy.

Kensington Palace used Twitter to reveal the duchess will also be present.

A statement on the Nursing Now website reads: ‘We are delighted that HRH The Duchess of Cambridge will be joining us at our launch in London.’

Anniversary

Former permanent secretary at the Department of Health and NHS chief executive Lord Nigel Crisp, who is co-chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on Global Health, is leading the three-year campaign.

In 2016, the APPG produced the Triple Impact report, which concludes that development of the nursing profession would improve health, promote gender equality and support economic growth.

The Nursing Now campaign will run to the end of 2020 to coincide with the 200th anniversary of the birth of Florence Nightingale and the year the contribution of nursing is planned to be celebrated worldwide.

To mark the launch, Nursing Now will unveil a number of global champions for the profession.

The duchess has a familial link to the profession; during the first world war her great-grandmother Olive Middleton, and Olive’s cousin Doris Kitson and sister-in-law Gertrude Middleton all worked as volunteer nurses at Voluntary Aid Detachment Hospital Gledhow Hall in Leeds.

The launch events in London and Geneva will be live-streamed from the Nursing Now website and Facebook page from 1-3pm.


In other news

Jobs