Two years into the pandemic massive investment in nursing is more urgent than ever.

The COVID-19 pandemic has taught us some very painful lessons about underinvestment in healthcare and the lack of adequate preparation for a pandemic. In this article, ICN Chief Executive Officer Howard Catton examines the World Health Organization's review of global preparedness and looks to the future and how nursing can contribute to better planning and health outcomes for all.

COVID-19 underlines our need for an ethical code

The pandemic has revealed serious shortcomings in countries’ healthcare systems, with many in danger of being overrun with patients who have COVID-19.

International Council of Nurses representing nursing at the World Health Organization: COVID-19, policy and holding politicians to account.

The International Council of Nurses is in a unique position to represent nurses at the World Health Organization, and its task has never been more urgent than this year. Amid the global COVID-19 pandemic, the death rates of nurses and other health care workers are truly shocking, with around 115 000 deaths. However, many countries do not collect statistics on health and care workers' deaths and infections from COVID-19, so the full extent of this awful situation is not known. At this year's World Health Assembly, the body that sets the World Health Organization's agenda for the following year, the International Council of Nurses' 50-strong delegation voiced the concerns of nurses and ensured that the views and advice of nurses were heard by the World Health Organization's 194 member states' delegates. Here, the International Council of Nurses' Chief Executive Officer Howard Catton describes how the Council is influencing health and care policy worldwide. He urges nurses everywhere to hold their politicians to account.

How to reposition the nursing profession for a post-covid age

The pandemic has laid bare the need to invest in nursing for global health and economic security. Howard Catton and Elizabeth Iro outline how the profession must transform to maximize its effect on patient care and outcomes

Nurses and Midwives as Global Partners to Achieve the Sustainable Development Goals in the Anthropocene.

PURPOSE: To highlight ongoing and emergent roles of nurses and midwives in advancing the United Nations 17 Sustainable Development Goals by 2030 at the intersection of social and economic inequity, the climate crisis, interprofessional partnership building, and the rising status and visibility of the professions worldwide. DESIGN: Discussion paper. METHODS: Literature review. FINDINGS: Realizing the Sustainable Development Goals will require all nurses and midwives to leverage their roles and responsibility as advocates, leaders, clinicians, scholars, and full partners with multidisciplinary actors and sectors across health systems. CONCLUSIONS: Making measurable progress toward the Sustainable Development Goals is critical to human survival, as well as the survival of the planet. Nurses and midwives play an integral part of this agenda at local and global levels. CLINICAL RELEVANCE: Nurses and midwives can integrate the targets of the Sustainable Development Goals into their everyday clinical work in various contexts and settings. With increased attention to social justice, environmental health, and partnership building, they can achieve exemplary clinical outcomes directly while contributing to the United Nations 2030 Agenda on a global scale and raising the profile of their professions.

COVID-19: The future of nursing will determine the fate of our health services.

Preparing the world to manage future pandemics must take priority. It is clear that we were not prepared for the COVID-19 pandemic which continues to cause great suffering around the world. Nurses and other health professionals everywhere must be involved in health policy planning and implementation of public health measures to combat this and future pandemics. Such preparation needs community policy involvement at grassroots levels and needs to be collaboratively instigated at international levels. The death so far of over 2000 nurses is unacceptable in this pandemic, and we need to better protect and sustain the workforce. The International Council of Nurses has been instrumental in data gathering of nurses' experiences during COVID-19. Key points from analysis of this data have been included in Second Progress Report of the World Health Organization's Independent Panel for Pandemic Preparedness and Response. This paper summarises the key messages from this report, as well as the nursing shortage. The International Council of Nurses resounds the call for massive investment in nursing education, leadership and jobs, as well as protection for our nurses on the frontlines of the pandemic.

Nursing and health policy perspectives 2020 - a year to remember or one to forget?

2020 has certainly been a year of challenges for nurses and healthcare workers around the world with the relentless spread of COVID-19. These challenges are many, including countries and health systems not being prepared for a pandemic, shortages of personal protective equipment and acute shortages of nurses, poor communication from governments and the lack of accurate data regarding COVID-19 morbidity and mortality among nurses and health workers. Nurses are suffering from psychological distress and are exhausted and burntout as the pandemic's second wave moves around the world. Many have been subjected to violence and aggression from people in their communities. Against this backdrop, nurses' contributions have been vital in saving lives and the profession has learnt many powerful lessons that will resonate in nursing practice for the future. But governments must do more, including ensuring nurses receive vaccinations early to protect them when a successful vaccine becomes available.

Tackling diabetes: how nurses can make the difference.

This year, World Diabetes Day on 14 November coincides with the International Year of the Nurse and the Midwife, and therefore focuses on highlighting the role of nurses in the prevention and management of diabetes.Diabetes is recognized as an important cause of premature death and disability globally and in the Eastern Mediterranean Region, where its prevalence has been steadily increasing since 1990. Although the annual decline of the risk of dying from a major noncommunicable disease between the ages of 30 and 70 years is slowing globally, diabetes is showing a 5% increase in attributed premature mortality. In 2016, diabetes was the direct cause of 1.6 million deaths globally and 43% of all deaths before the age of 70 years occur due to high blood glucose. Overweight and obesity are the strongest risk factors for type 2 diabetes. In addition, diabetes increases the risk of heart disease and stroke and is a leading cause of blindness, lower limb amputation and kidney failure. A study conducted in 35 countries indicated that people living with diabetes are more likely to experience catastrophic health expenditures with an estimated increase of 4% between diabetic and non-diabetic individuals, regardless of their insurance status.

Global nursing leadership: alive and kicking in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic.

As the COVID-19 pandemic continues its journey around the world, it has triggered a global nursing response, with nurses everywhere working to save the lives of their extremely sick patients. In parallel with the frontline response, the International Council of Nurses, the World Health Authority and the International Confederation of Midwives have used their biennial Triad meetings to set out what needs to be done from a global perspective to protect nurses and the people they serve. At a time of crisis, it is imperative that the world's nursing leaders, through ICN's National Nursing Associations, step up to give support and guidance at this historically unsettling time.

Nursing in the COVID-19 pandemic and beyond: protecting, saving, supporting and honouring nurses.

As the world tackles the largest public health event in more than a century, the COVID-19 pandemic, the true value of nursing is being seen by politicians and the public. But while nurses are being praised for the vital work they do, many are being put into high-risk situations, and some have died, because of a shortage of appropriate, high-quality personal protective equipment. The International Council of Nurses has called for governments to make the provision of such equipment their number one priority to prevent further loss of life among the nurses caring for the world's most vulnerable patients.