Global Nursing Now

A programme from the Burdett Trust for Nursing, run in collaboration with the World Health Organization and the International Council of Nurses (ICN), the Nursing Now campaign (https://www.nursingnow.org/) aims to raise the status as well as the profile of our profession. The 3-year campaign will run to the end of 2020, the 200th anniversary of the birth of Florence Nightingale. Nursing Now aims to progress perceptions of nurses, improve their influence and maximise the contributions that nurses make to ensure that everyone, everywhere has access to high-quality health and health care. Bringing nursing to the forefront of thinking on global health and empowering nurses to do even more in improving health locally, nationally and globally are key to the aspiration of universal health coverage.

The campaign points out that nurses are often undervalued and unable to use their skills and knowledge to the full, notwithstanding that globally nurses (and midwives), account for half the health professional workforce, providing 90% of the care given by professionals. Strengthening nursing can have a threefold impact of improving health, promoting gender equity and contributing to economic development and lending support to other Sustainable Development Goals.