Chief Executive, Maz Fosh on the Year of the Nurse and Midwife

You may have heard that 2020 is the International Year of the Nurse and Midwife. This year is Florence Nightingale’s bicentennial year and has been designated by the World Health Organization (WHO) as the first ever global Year of the Nurse and Midwife; a time when nurses and midwives will be celebrated worldwide. The NHS is celebrating for 12 months.

Nurses and midwives are highly skilled, multi-faceted professionals from a host of backgrounds that represent our diverse communities. 2020 is time to reflect on the skills, commitment and expert clinical care nurses and midwives bring to the NHS and the impact they have on so many lives.

Lincolnshire Community Health Services NHS Trust (LCHS) is joining with colleagues from across the country to celebrate the Year of the Nurse and Midwife.

At LCHS we are proud of all of our staff, however, we are using this opportunity to raise the profile of nursing at LCHS and show you all the amazing things we do for our patients.

We aim to celebrate our nurses and to raise the profile of the profession, to improve retention and drive recruitment to LCHS and the NHS.

Did you know nurses and midwives make up the largest numbers of the NHS workforce? In LCHS over half of our staff are nurses.

We have many nursing roles in LCHS which include community, district and general nurses, advanced nurse practitioners, Macmillan nurses, specialist nurses (such as respiratory, cardiac rehabilitation, Parkinson’s and diabetes) continence nurses, healthcare support workers and nursing associates. Maybe some of these nurses have touched your lives, by treating you or a family member.

At LCHS we are keen to celebrate success and last year we had a number of regional and national award winning nurses, including David Edwards a district nurse in Gainsborough and Jane Pannell and Deborah Faulkner in Spalding. All three have very different roles. David was honoured for his contribution to the end of life care of a patient, click here for more info; Jane won the lifetime achievement award at the Lincolnshire Live Healthcare Awards 2019 and Deborah was a runner up in the national HEAT awards for her commitment to returning to nursing after a 17 year break.

Our plans to celebrate the Year of the Nurse include, raising money for charity, showcasing LCHS nursing history and giving you an insight into how our hardworking nurses care for their patients in their varied roles.

Look out for the hashtag #YearOfTheNurseAndMidwife, follow us on @LincsCommHealth or find us on Facebook to see more on how we are celebrating our nurses this year.

If you are interested in nursing at LCHS or opportunities to train on the job through nurse associate roles and apprenticeships, please click here for vacancies.