Health Visiting and Florence Nightingale

Say the name Florence Nightingale and most people think of the Lady of the Lamp and the Crimean War.  She was much more than that.  

2020 is the 200^th anniversary of her birth.  I am not going to go into details of her life here – there are many websites where you can see all the information you need.

Her main contributions, which continued long after Crimea, was in the organization of nursing training, in hospital planning, public and military health, and in effective collection of medical statistics.

I was very privileged to be interviewed for my post as Chair of the Trustees of the Institute of Health Visiting (iHV) by Ros Bryar Professor Emerita Community and Primary Care Nursing, City, University of London, who was a founding member and is an Honorary Fellow of the iHV.

Please read this excellent paper by Ros to celebrate International Nurses Day.  

Florence Nightingale, Public Health Nursing Pioneer

I would like to add that it is also a very worrying time for health visitors and the families they serve. As they are all highly trained nurses some were “repurposed” by the local authorities.  While one can understand the urgency of the current crisis many of them were already struggling under huge caseloads and looking after some of our most vulnerable families.  

I absolutely applaud our staff for a fantastic effort to support our many members to help them to continue and ensure best practice and the most up to date accurate information is disseminated.  I will shine a light for them tonight!