#FutureNursing #FutureMidwifery
Originally published by Bev Matthews – 17th February 2018
Last December I had a fantastic opportunity to join NHS Horizons to lead the delivery of a programme of work focused on transforming Perceptions of Nursing and Midwifery. Within 15 days of joining the team we were ‘going live’ with a Crowdicity crowd sourcing platform with 3 challenges!
We all recognise the vital role that the nurses and midwives play in the day-to-day running of our health and social care services, and for providing the very best care for people at every stage of our lives. By 2020 the NHS will be treating increasing numbers of people, and caring for an ageing population with more complex needs. We are also facing challenges around recruiting and retaining nursing and midwifery staff, which means this campaign is critically important for the health and care service.
This campaign about transforming perceptions of nursing and midwifery will seek to answer these questions – and create solutions. In our first “sprint”, which ran from 15th December to 29th January 2018, we wanted to gather ideas that were likely to support:
young people to know about the breadth and depth of careers available to them through the nursing and midwifery route;
teachers to promote nursing and midwifery as career of choice in schools.
the public to about the roles that form these professions, ranging from the essential day-to-day caring responsibilities that immediately spring to mind when we think of a nurse or midwife – to the highly technical, research, executive leadership – and many more.
nurses and midwives to reignite their pride in the profession, to see the value for them as individuals, and to promote it as a career within their organisations and within the wider public
system leaders champion the nursing and midwifery professions to ensure that we cover the shortfall, we retain our nurses, and we attract and keep the very best talent to this incredibly important career.
The campaign has been in development since March 2017 when Chief Nursing Officer Professor Jane Cummings announced at the CNO summit that this work will be launched to positively transform the image of nursing, with a view to increasing recruitment and retention of staff.
During this Sprint we used #FutureNursing and #FutureMidwifery, creating a dynamic presence on social media. By working with Graham MacKenzie we were able to track this activity using a clever tool called NodeXL. NodeXL capture connection activity on twitter and had created a fantastic graphic as part of the story for transforming perceptions of Nursing and Midwifery.
Look out for the launch of Sprint 2 from the 2018 CNO summit where the ideas are transforming into actions …
#SolvingTogether