A blog by Professor Julie Green, Head of our School of Nursing & Midwifery, to celebrate International Nurses Day 2024. This article also appeared in the Stoke Sentinel in May 2024.

International Nurses Day is celebrated on May 12th each year and commemorates the birth of Florence Nightingale. Each year the day has a theme and for 2024 the theme chosen by the International Council of Nurses is 'Our Nurses. Our Future. The economic power of care'.

Florence Nightingale was born in 1820 and is seen as the founder of modern nursing. During the Crimean War, more soldiers were dying from diseases, such as infection, rather than their battle injuries. Florence revolutionised care. She applied her knowledge of statistics and a range of improvements to sanitation standards and saved many lives. Florence transformed nursing into a respectable profession, and she worked tirelessly for more than 50 years to improve health standards. Nursing in 2024 has many reasons to be grateful to Florence Nightingale.

What is the relevance of International Nurses Day in 2024?

The day provides nurses with an opportunity to unite with colleagues from around the world, acknowledging the similar challenges that the profession faces and how much we can learn from each other. Nursing is a truly international profession. Nursing, in some form, is present across all countries of the world, however, it continues to be undervalued and underpaid. Nursing is a female dominated profession, with 90 per cent of nurses in the UK being female - a pattern mirrored across many countries which might account for its low status and recognition. In the UK, nursing has been an all-graduate profession since 2012. This increase in academic requirements has led to an evidenced improvement in both patient safety and the standards of care delivery.

As a registered nurse in the UK, a registrant's details are recorded with the Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC). The NMC site is available to the public to access and review and contains the qualification details of over 730,000 registered nurses and nurse associates. To be employed as a registrant in the UK you must be registered with the NMC. A nursing qualification affords the recipient the opportunity for a high degree of international mobility, should they wish to move and work elsewhere. Annually, in the UK, we see some outgoing international mobility, with UK-born nurses relocating to work elsewhere such as Australia or the United Arab Emirates. We also see a degree of incoming mobility, with nurses from around the world joining the UK workforce - indeed, around 30 per cent of nurses in the UK are non-UK originating from India, the Philippines, the European Union, and Africa. The mobility of nurses, both outgoing and incoming, provides a rich tapestry to the workforce and a great opportunity to learn from colleagues. It is important to recognise that the similarities of our international nursing provision far outweigh our differences.

At Keele's School of Nursing and Midwifery, we have focus on international mobility for our staff and students and are celebrating International Nurses Day by holding an online conference. On 9th and 10th May, we will be joined by colleague and students from Schools of Nursing across the world – Bahrain, New Delhi, Brazil, Thailand, China and Germany – to listen to presentations about nurse training, care delivery and innovations. We will respectfully learn from each other and develop bonds to allow for student electives.

The day provides us with an important opportunity to celebrate the diversity of the nursing profession. We have so much to learn from each other to improve the care that we deliver and meet the need for sustained recruitment to the variety of roles within the profession. Nursing, certainly within the UK, has, over the last few years, seen a downturn in application numbers from those wishing to be trained as a nurse. This is due to several complex issues, not least the intensity of the 'training' being both academic, with a BSc (Honours), and 2,300 hours supervised and assessed in clinical practice, the costs associated with study and the relatively modest initial salaries (starting at £28,407).

At Keele, we provide a high level of support to our students. We deliver a family friendly taught curriculum and work hard to ensure our students' success. If you are up for the challenge of a career as a nurse – where every day is different and presents an opportunity to provide person-centred care – please get in touch or come along to one of our open days. We have trained over 5,000 nurses who are working for the NHS, supporting the delivery of exceptional care and have intakes of 300 every September. Nurses are proud to care, and Keele is proud to train the future workforce of the NHS.