Professional Experience Placement

The International Council of Nurses (ICN) is a federation of more than 130 national nurses associations representing the millions of nurses worldwide. Operated by nurses and leading nursing internationally, ICN works to ensure quality care for all and sound health policies globally. The Australian College of Nursing is a full member the Australian Nursing and Midwifery Federation is a collaborating association. All nurses who are members of these professional bodies are members of the ICN.  The ICN website provides a wealth of information about its aim purpose, strategic direction, including resources, bulletins and position statements, which provide guidance for nursing professional bodies and individual nurses worldwide.

The ICN recently released two statements that are of interest to nurses in Australia.  The first  is the newly released strategic directions for nursing and midwifery 2016-2020 which outlines the key themes of this initiative:

1.Ensuring an educated, competent and motivated nursing and midwifery workforce within effective and responsive health systems at all levels and in different settings;

2.Optimizing policy development, effective leadership, management and governance;

3.Working together to maximise the capacities and potentials of nurses and midwives through intra-and interprofessional collaborative partnerships, education and continuing professional development; and

4.Mobilizing political will to invest in building effective evidence-based nursing and midwifery workforce development.

The second statement released a few days later called for investment in nursing and midwifery to discuss strengthening ICN’s national nursing associations and policy influence as well as addressing the contribution of the nursing and midwifery workforce to the global health mandates of Universal Health Coverage  and Sustainable Development Goals. Three main themes emerged from World Health Professions Conference on Regulation.  These were:

1.Balancing regulation of individual health professionals and of health services;

2.Health professional regulation and trade agreements: Protecting the public versus facilitating commerce; and

3.The Sustainable Development Goals 2016-2030 and WHO Global Strategy on Human Resources for Health: Workforce 2030.

The ICN represents nurses who are the largest health profession in the world, to have a voice in high-level decision making and policy development.

I urge you to go for a browse and become familiar with the global strategic voice of nurses.

If you have any comments about the strategic directions for nursing and midwifery you are welcome to post them here.  Please join us @PEPCommunity