Florence Nightingale’s birthday is celebrated on the 12th of May each year, with this year’s celebration marking what would be her 203rd birthday. As part of these annual celebrations, the health and care sector recognises the work of nurses on International Nurses Day, led by the International Council of Nurses (ICN). This year’s International Nurses Day theme is “Our Nurses. Our Future”

To Mark this year’s International Nurses Day, Health Innovation Manchester’s Chief Nurse / CNIO, Paula Bennett discusses how innovation and nursing can create a powerful partnership to drive future improvement in healthcare and nursing. 

As we celebrate another International Nurses Day and its theme “Our Nurses. Our Future” it prompted me to reflect yet again on the critical role nurses have played historically, at present, and in the future when it comes to shaping and leading health and care innovation.

Florence Nightingale was one of our most historic nursing innovators. She changed the design of hospital wards to ensure they had large windows and good ventilation believing this was better for health and recovery. In turn, these “Nightingale” wards were named after her. She also used data to demonstrate the healthcare problems at the time, using it to drive improvement and innovation, being fully aware that new experiences can lead to new discoveries and successful innovations.

Florence Nightingale said:

“For us who Nurse, our Nursing is a thing, which, unless in it we are making progress every year, every month, every week, take my word for it we are going back. The more experience we gain, the more progress we can make.”

Innovation can take many forms; the introduction of new technology, changing staff roles, intervening earlier, and improving access to care. They all have the same overall aim – to have a positive impact on the outcomes of care.

Nurses are natural innovators. They use their problem-solving skills and solution focussed mindset to constantly find new and creative ways to deliver care, in increasingly challenging situations. The pandemic demonstrated this across all settings and especially through the use of new technologies supporting care.

We don’t often think of ourselves as innovators, but so many of the things we do involve implementing change, testing those changes, and making further refinements – this is innovation; doing something new that changes the way we deliver care that has a positive impact.

However, there is more we can do to solve some of the really challenging problems we face. Being actively involved, for example, in addressing inequalities or tackling delays to care will ensure the nursing voice is heard and our skills and experience are used to its fullest problem-solving potential.

Innovation is not the role of leaders, it’s a role for all of us. It takes hard work, tenacity, commitment, and great communication skills – which of course nurses have by the bucketload!

Nurse Innovators are “Our Future”