The last week and a half have been a rollercoaster, both physically as I’ve been here, there and everywhere, and emotionally.

International Day of the Midwife and Nurse’s Day May 2025 have been very different for me.

The ICM and ICN published hard hitting reports about the critical shortages of midwives and nurses across the globe and the Nursing Now Challenge, in conjunction with the World Health Organisation published their second State of the World’s Nursing report (#SoWN25) yesterday on #IND2025. This report, which has been two years in the writing (data collection was 2018-2023), landed hard. Harder than the 2020 report. Since 2020, we have an additional 1 million nurses to find by 2030. This is on top of the 10 million global shortage that was predicted in 2020.

I will write another blog about this ground-breaking report as soon as I’ve reflected and read it cover to cover. I urge you to read this and tell your colleagues about it. It’s the blueprint for the future.

Last week, I was invited to spend the day with Jo, the Chief Nurse from Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells and around 150 of her staff, and then Jay, Chief Nurse at Ashford and St Peter’s, my local NHS Trust and a group of his staff at their annual Pride in Nursing and Midwifery event (#PiNM25).

My key note addresses focused on nurse wellbeing and the vital role we all have in prioritising the wellbeing of our nursing profession. Huge thanks to Hannah and Fiona for organising such fabulous events.

On Friday evening, I attended the QICN annual William Rathbone X lecture, given this year by the absolutely amazing Dr Olga Yakusheva, a US based Health Economist and academic who has a laser focus on the economic impact of nursing. I was fortunate to spend some time with Olga afterwards and we discussed the cultural aspect of nursing leadership and the need for us all to get outside our comfort zones and talk to policy leaders about the financial impact of nursing. I learned some new language and I will write more in a future blog so look out for that!

On behalf of FoNS, I was absolutely thrilled and honoured to be part of the launch at the Royal College of Nursing HQ, where we were filmed talking together about the report and the implications for all of us over the next 5 years. We gathered downstairs in the RCN café to have some fun with the banners. We sang S-O-W-N to the music of YMCA by the Village People!

I then headed over to meet my Chair of Trustees Professor Jo Pritchard and Lord Victor Adebowale, loaded up with my SoWN25 report and an accompanying report about the economic value of nursing by Olga and colleagues in the US. We had a rich and diverse discussion and I pinned my Nurse’s Day badge on Victor’s lapel.

These conversations will continue. That is me moving out of my comfort zone!

The House of Lord was next for the official launch of #SoWN25 where I sat on a panel with our fantastic early career nurse leaders from the Nursing Now Challenge. Our England CNO Duncan was there too and made a commitment to bring in our early career nurses to co-produce our next nursing strategy.

I finished the day off at Westminster Abbey, celebrating nursing and acknowledging every nurse who has fallen in conflict and the pandemic. It was especially poignant for me this year as I got to sit right behind the choir. Beautiful experience.

My reflections so far this week are:

1. These three reports serve as a call to action so let’s go.  We are one workforce. We are the art and science of nursing. One health; one world; one profession.
2. We have five years until the end of the Sustainable Development Goals (2015-2030) so what’s next? That’s in part up to us. We need to create social movements and know that we are part of the solution.
3. Gender inequity in nursing is very real, is very serious across the globe and we must address this together.
4. We are short of 5.8 million nurses right now. Nurses are human capital and are an asset so we need to learn the language of health economics.
5. We have better data than ever before so we must work with our younger nurses who are digital natives and nurse citizen developers.
6. Education institutions need to up their game and focus on the future skills, knowledge and expertise we need for the rapidly changing global challenges we face, including ‘super-ageing’.
7. Social accountability is where’s it’s at. We need to continue to strengthen partnerships and add value to the parliamentary processes. We need to continue to role model in our communities.
8. As Dorcas Gwata and Baroness Anne Marie Rafferty said, ‘dare to dream and let your aspirations roam. Our imagination is part of our resilience’.

Let’s keep this conversation going.

Joanne