Dear colleague, at the CNO Summit last month, Dame Ruth May, Chief Nursing Officer for England, committed to developing a strategy that will set out a strategic direction for nurses, midwives and nursing associates across health and social care for the next 3-5 years. We’re keen to ensure the strategy is developed with, and by, the professionals to reflect their experiences and aspirations. It is important that we define the future role of nursing and midwifery in leading and delivering high-quality care across health and social care.

This needs to be a strategy developed and owned by all nurses, midwives and nursing associates and it will be informed by the strategic drivers in England including government policy and the NHS Long Term Plan as well as international evidence.

We have launched an engagement exercise to capture views on relevant priority areas and key enablers. This will be based around a small number of high-level priority themes to frame the discussion which have been developed in partnership with my senior nursing team. The themes are:

• Workforce and people
• System leadership and integration
• Health equity, prevention and population health management
• Person centred practice and improving outcomes

Your views are important and we would encourage you to get involved by responding to this survey. More information, as well as the link to the survey is available here: https://www.good-governance.org.uk/teamCNO

We would also really welcome you sharing this across your own local networks so that they are aware of this work and have an opportunity to share their thoughts with us too.

Best Wishes

David Harling | National Deputy Director for Learning Disability Nursing

National Nursing Directorate of the Chief Nursing Officer for England  

NHS England & NHS Improvement  

Twitter: @DavidHarling1