In the week of International Nurses Day (Sunday 12 May) we celebrated our nurses by delivering fruit baskets to our wards, while teams held their own celebrations. At our Trust we have more than 4,000 nurses, nursing associates and healthcare assistants from 111 different countries.

The theme this year was to encourage nurses to get moving and take part in a Parkrun. They were encouraged to run, jog, walk or volunteer in these free 5k runs which take place in local parks.

Anna Page, our Deputy Chief Nurse and Site Director for King George Hospital took part in a Parkrun on Saturday 4 May. 

Anna said:

“It was a wonderful opportunity for nurses to come together to celebrate the work they do. I wanted to do something positive that recognised all nurses. I like running so once I heard about Parkrun I knew I had to take part. I was really pleased that I managed to achieve my personal best, which made taking part ahead of nurses’ day even more special.”

Kathryn Halford, our Chief Nurse, said:

“I am incredibly proud of the work our nurses, nursing associates and healthcare assistants do for our patients here at our hospitals. They make up almost half of the entire workforce at our Trust, providing round the clock care, compassion and a listening ear to people, often at the most vulnerable times of their lives.

“International Nurses Day gives me the opportunity to reflect on what we have achieved and our plans for the future. In the last year we have made significant improvements in the services we provide, including reconfiguring our wards to make better use of space and create a better environment for our patients.”

Other improvements we’ve made include introducing ward accreditations. The ward accreditation systems are tools used by NHS Trusts to objectively score individual wards against a national framework to ensure hight quality patient care is delivered. Currently, 38 wards have been assessed against the framework and all have achieved at least a bronze award. Sixteen wards have achieved silver and one ward has achieved gold.

Despite having one of the busiest A&E’s in the country, we hit the national recovery target for A&E performance in March, 77.6% of patients in A&E have been seen within four hours during March 2024 (against the national target of 76%).

Over the next few months we aim to continue to grow our nursing workforce with regular recruitment events. Currently we are on track to keep our vacancy levels below 12%, the national NHS target.

International Nurses Day is a day to celebrate the valuable work nurses do and takes place on the birthday of one of world’s most famous nurses, Florence Nightingale.