International Nurses Day – 12th May 2025
International Nurses Day (IND) is a campaign run by the International Council of Nurses (ICN), and is celebrated every year on the 12th May, the anniversary of Florence Nightingale’s birth.
The theme for 2025 is focussed on the health and wellbeing of nurses, building on the 2024 IND’s work to demonstrate the societal and economic benefits of investment in nursing. The International Council of Nurses hope to promote the thinking that a healthy nursing workforce leads to better health outcomes for communities and improved functioning of health systems.
The role of Nurses in General Practice
Nurses play an essential role in Primary care, undertaking an ever wider range of roles, including:
- Treating minor illnesses
- Helping people manage long term conditions
- Dressings
- Health screening and advice
- Family planning
- Running vaccination programmes (e.g. against flu)
- Running programmes to help people stop smoking
- Collecting blood samples
- Cervical screening
Nurses assess and treat people of all ages and work together with other members of the clinical team, including GPs, to ensure that health conditions are appropriately managed, and patients receive the best outcome from their visit to the practice.