Nurses Day 2014 – what did we get up to?
I couldn’t think of a more appropriate focus for a Nursing Studies blog post – how did students within Nursing Studies been spend time to celebrate Nurses Day 2014?
Nurses day is a celebration of the profession across the world. International nurses day always falls on the 12th May- Florence Nightingales birthday. This year two of our first year undergraduate students, Christina Valentien and Sarah Jefferies, attended the Florence Nightingale Students’ Day in London. This annual event allowed the students to put questions to a panel and then have a tour of the Florence Nightingale museum. The days events then finished with the annual Florence Nightingale commemoration service at Westminster Abbey, which was held just a few days before Nurses Day.
The students found it interesting to speak to other student nurses from all over the country, share in their experiences of nursing so far, and ‘’After a trip to the Florence Nightingale Museum it was nice to learn about the woman who made such an influence on nursing practice and really improved the standard of care that we try very hard to uphold today’’ Sarah.
‘’It was an honour to attend the Florence Nightingale Memorial. It gave me the opportunity to meet inspirational nurses and gain an insight into the life and works and Florence Nightingale. It was a great opportunity to discuss and share experiences with other student nurses?’’ Christina.
Whilst the memorial service commemorates Florence Nightingale and her life, it also celebrates the nurses and midwives working in these professions with over 2000 nurses and midwives in attendance.
‘’Sitting with many special people in Westminster Abbey made me feel proud to be a student nurse and I came away with an increased sense of purpose and motivation to study. I will always remember this day ‘’ Christina.
Closer to home, NHS Lothian had chosen to hold their annual Delivering Better Care conference on Nurses Day and I was lucky enough to be able to attend the day held in West Lothian. The conference fell on a theme of nurses and midwives celebrating their contribution to health across the life span.
It was wonderful to see frontline staff demonstrating and presenting how they have made a difference through innovating projects and changes, and nurses and midwives feeling inspired to take changes and ideas back to their own areas of practice, all looking for improvements in patient care and health care experiences.
The day left me thinking about how Nurses and Midwives really are a vital resource for health- part of the theme for this year’s International Nurses Day. Nurses are becoming more involved in innovation and evaluation and that has been demonstrated through some of the presentations at the NHS Lothian conference.
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