Throughout next year, nursing and midwifery will be in the spotlight, as 2020 has been declared the international year of the nurse and midwife by the World Health Organization (WHO) and Nightingale bicentenary celebrations are also taking place globally. This year has just witnessed a centenary of nursing regulation as, on 23 December 1919, the Nurses Registration Act was passed. Seen as the UK's most trusted profession, nursing impacts on the lives of people and communities everywhere in a variety of roles in a number of profound ways. Our professional regulator, the Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC), constantly reviews professional standards, ensuring that those on the professional register provide contemporary, evidence-based care that contributes to positive outcomes for patients and those who use our services.
Bicentenary celebrations
The year 2020 sees the 200th celebration of Florence Nightingale's birth. Nightingale, leader, icon and pioneer was born in 1820 and died aged 90 in 1910. She is seen as the philosophical founder of modern nursing, as well as a female icon, healthcare pioneer and a competent and respected researcher, statistician, analyst, entrepreneur, innovator, and leader. Throughout 2020, there will be celebrations of the legacy she left. Nightingale inspired, and continues to inspire, nurses globally, and, as well as nurses, her work has informed mathematicians, architects, public health workers and activists.
» Nightingale believed that nursing was both an art and a science, which required an educational underpinning and good conduct, as well as aesthetic considerations «
Florence Nightingale treated and respected patients regardless of their social class, disability, hygiene or occupation, and she insisted that a ‘real’ nurse would abandon any class differences. The sick and infirm, she noted, require special constructive arrangements. They are not paupers: they are poor in affliction and society owes them every care for recovery (Nightingale, cited by Nelson and Rafferty, 2010). Nightingale's influence on nursing continues. She personified many of the important ideas that are key to nursing today: values, vision and voice, the precursor in many ways to the 6Cs (care, compassion, competence, communication, courage and commitment) (Department of Health and Social Care, 2012). Nightingale's legacy of philosophical fundamentals still pervades within the profession today, informing contemporary nursing that it has its roots embedded in her principles.
The art and science of nursing
Nightingale believed that nursing was both an art and a science, which required an educational underpinning and good conduct, as well as aesthetic considerations, something aesthetic nurses of today know only too well. In 1871, she wrote:
‘Nursing is an art: and if it is to be made an art, it requires an exclusive devotion, as hard a preparation, as any painter's or sculptor's work; for what is the having to do with dead canvas or dead marble, compared with having to do with the living body?’
The history of aesthetic nursing has not been written; it is still being written. It will continue to be in the making as the role and function of the nurse respond dynamically and effectively to the needs of the people it has the privilege to serve, and the needs of the people it serves are continually changing.
Ahead of her time
As a passionate statistician, Nightingale conducted extensive research and analysis. She published over 200 reports and pamphlets on a wide range of issues, including hygiene, hospital administration and design, midwifery and healthcare for the poor, concerned with the most basic needs of human beings and all aspects of the environment locally and globally. However, Williams (2008) suggests that much of her reputation is based on the myths created by the popular press at the time of the Crimean war.
Nightingale was a nurse, educator, administrator, communicator, statistician and environmental activist; these attributes can clearly be identified in the NMC's Standards of proficiency for registered nurses (NMC, 2018). Nightingale was ahead of her time; she began to write in the 1880s that it would take 100–150 years before educated and experienced nurses would arrive to change the healthcare system. Today's nurses are the generation of 21st century Nightingales and health representatives. Nurses must envisage their role beyond nursing and see themselves as health broadcasters and social media communicators, transforming health and social care with others and carrying forward Nightingale's vision of social action so as to create a healthy world.
International year of the nurse and midwife
The first ever international year of the nurse and midwife is being held in 2020, providing a once in a generation opportunity to showcase the professions, as well as globally raising the status and profile of nurses and midwives. Next year's dedication to the cause was approved by leaders at the World Health Assembly. Both professions are invaluable to the health of people everywhere—without nurses and midwives, it is not possible to achieve sustainable development goals or universal health coverage. The WHO recognises the crucial role of nurses and midwives on a daily basis. While 2020 will be dedicated to highlighting the enormous contributions that nurses and midwives make, it is also important to ensure that the shortage of these two professions across the globe is also addressed.
It could be suggested that a profession's fascination with a role model who died over 100 years ago could hinder progress, but, personally, I could not disagree more with this. Nightingale's words and work still inform contemporary nursing. However, as we celebrate Nightingale's bicentenary and international year of the nurse and midwife, we must acknowledge the outstanding contribution made by every contemporary nurse and midwife locally, nationally and internationally.