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Celebrating 70 years of innovative care

The Chief Nursing Officer for England calls on nursing, midwifery and care staff to help mark the 70th anniversary of the NHS:

This year nursing, midwifery and care staff have the perfect opportunity to celebrate 70 years of innovation and person centered care in our NHS and beyond.

And with our staff, we can shape the future and look forward to the next 70 years.

Never before has it been so easy for large numbers of people to share ideas, opinions, thoughts and resources. I encourage nursing, midwifery and care staff from across the country to join together and celebrate their achievements and innovations.

One of the ways you can do this, in part, is by blogging about the innovative, unusual and amazing work that you do and have done. It’s also about your future work and your contribution to the NHS over the next 70 years.

Whatever your role, wherever you work, now is the time to really embrace social media and to blog about how important your work is and what impact you have.

Blogging can really make a big impact on services with small changes often making a big difference, and this is demonstrated by the #EndPJparalysis social media campaign which recently went viral.

Led by NHS-trained nurse, Brian Dolan, Visiting Professor of Nursing, Oxford Institute of Nursing, Midwifery & Allied Health Research (OxINMAHR), this campaign improves patient experience, and can help them to recover more quickly. It has attracted interest from around the world and can reduce the patient’s length of stay, valuing patient time.

Over the coming weeks, a number of webinars will take place to demonstrate the impact blogging can have on health and social care and to demonstrate how uncomplicated blogging can be. We will share details of the webinars and how you can join in  – keep an eye out for a follow up blog!

I was interested to see a recent #WeNurses Twitter chat on blogging in nursing which explored the very subject of how to get the most from a blog. It was great to see participants sharing their thoughts on blogging, and some key points I noted were that blogs can inspire more nurses and midwives to share and connect. It can help us to share stories and provide a specialist viewpoint; promote self-growth and make our professions more visible.

I am pleased to announce that the idea is being turned into a reality, and #70nursebloggers and #70midwifebloggers is officially launched today.

As a nurse and a blogger myself, I encourage more nurses and midwives to blog as, quite simply, it provides a platform to showcase the fantastic contribution that our professions has made to healthcare over the years. Blogging is also a great way to showcase how nursing, midwifery and care staff are implementing Leading Change, Adding Value, demonstrating how they have identified and reduced unwarranted variation and delivered the triple aim of better outcomes, experiences and use of resources.

So, this is how you can be involved: my aim is to inspire 70 nurses and midwives whatever their role, wherever they work, to blog and to help raise the profile of nursing and midwifery and to celebrate the amazing achievements they have made over the past 70 years since the launch of the NHS in 1948.

You can set up a blog alone, or with some of your colleagues; it can be a guest blog on someone else’s website; and it can take the form of a written blog, a video blog or an audio blog. Blogs about an aspect of nursing, midwifery or care are welcome from existing bloggers and from those new to blogging – let’s care to share.

When you have written your blog please post it and include a statement along the lines of: “Here is my contribution to #70nursebloggers / #70midwifebloggers” and insert the link to your blog.

Your blog will then be added to the @WeNurses or @WeMidwives #70nursebloggers and #70midwifebloggers Twitter lists and we will help promote your blog.

I feel pleased and privileged to be launching #70nursebloggers and #70midwifebloggers and I hope that my blog will inspire you to write your own.

Together, we can provide an insight into the complex and vital work that nursing, midwifery and care staff do.

I look forward to reading the ideas, opinions, thoughts and resources shared in your blogs and to seeing #70nursebloggers and #70midwifebloggers become a vibrant resource for nurses and midwives who blog or want to blog.

The blogs will be referenced and used as part of our regional nursing, midwifery and care conferences on 3 July to help demonstrate the huge impact we have across the health and care system.

Jane Cummings

Professor Jane Cummings is the Chief Nursing Officer for England and Executive Director at NHS England.

Jane specialised in emergency care and has held a wide variety of roles across the NHS including Director of Commissioning, Director of Nursing and Deputy Chief Executive.

In February 2004, she became the national lead for emergency care agreeing and implementing the 98% operational standard. She has also worked as the nursing advisor for emergency care. In January 2005, she was appointed as the National Implementation Director for ‘Choice’ and ‘Choose and Book’.

Jane moved to NHS North West in November 2007 where she held executive responsibility for the professional leadership of nursing, quality, performance as well as QIPP, commissioning and for a time Deputy Chief Executive Officer. In October 2011, she was appointed to the role of Chief Nurse for the North of England SHA Cluster.

She was appointed as Chief Nursing Officer for England in March 2012 and started full time in June 2012. Jane is the professional lead for all nurses and midwives in England (with the exception of public health) and published the ‘6Cs’ and ‘Compassion in Practice’ in December 2012, followed by publishing the ‘Leading Change, Adding Value’ framework in May 2016.

Jane has executive oversight of maternity, patient experience, learning disability and, in January 2016, became executive lead for Patient and Public Participation.

She was awarded Doctorates by Edge Hill University and by Bucks New University, and she is a visiting professor at Kingston University and St George’s University, London.

She is also Director and trustee for Macmillan Cancer Support and a clinical Ambassador for the Over the Wall Children’s Charity where she volunteers as a nurse providing care for children affected by serious illnesses.

Follow Jane on Twitter: @JaneMCummings.