Duncan Burton appointed as new Chief Nursing Officer for England

NHS England has announced today that Duncan Burton has been appointed to the role of Chief Nursing Officer for England and Executive Director at NHS England.

The chief nursing officer for England (CNO) is supported by the chief midwifery officer, four deputy chief nursing officers, and seven regional chief nurses. He is responsible for providing clinical and professional leadership for all nurses, midwives and nursing associates across health and social care in England, including the 373,000 nurses and midwives who work for the NHS and who make up the largest group of the total NHS workforce, as well as the nurses working in public health and those in the independent sector.

He also provides clinical and workforce advice to the NHS and the board of NHS England, and to ministers and officials in the Department of Health and Social Care on relevant issues.

A workforce that is fit for the future – ensuring the right teams are in place is crucial to the delivery of the Long Term Plan. To achieve this, we need to:

Recruit and retain enough people with the skills required.
Build places of work that are rewarding, positive and filled with opportunity.
Develop the quality of our management and leadership at every level.
Tackle inequality and break down the barriers that are preventing too many from reaching their potential.
Create an infrastructure that enables more volunteers to support our front-line staff.

Responding to the announcement, Alison Morton, iHV CEO said:

“The Institute of Health Visiting joins with others across the family of nursing in congratulating Duncan on his appointment as the new CNO for England, and we offer him our ongoing support as he picks up the mantle to lead the nursing profession in England into the future. There is no denying that Duncan is taking on this most senior role in nursing at a time of great challenge in almost every part of the health and care system – however, it is also a time of great opportunity for our profession that requires courageous leadership.

“At the iHV, we have worked closely with Duncan for many years – he has shown himself to be a man of integrity, collegiate by nature, and with the ambition and drive for excellence across all areas of nursing that is very much needed at this time. He is also a staunch advocate for babies, children and families and recognises the important role that health visitors play in improving the nation’s health. Duncan has shown that he understands the scale of the task that lies ahead and is ready to rise to the challenge. Congratulations Duncan!

“We also want to thank Dame Ruth May for her incredible leadership during her five-year tenure as CNO. Ruth has been tireless in her efforts in putting people first and skilfully navigating our profession during some turbulent years. We wish her every success for the future! Thank you, Ruth!”

iHV Leadership conference 2023 recordings available

Last week, health visiting leaders, practitioners, policy makers and partners joined together in London for the Institute of Health Visiting’s annual Leadership conference. The event was held at the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists/ Royal College of Midwives’ headquarters at 10 Union Street in London. Despite significant travel disruptions caused by the rail strike, 162 delegates were able to attend in-person, with a further 102 delegates registered online – with many saying that they wouldn’t miss it for the world! Thank you, we really value all your support.

The title of the conference was “Leading in a complex world” – if we have ever needed strong leaders, we need them now! With so much rapid change, it is even more important that we take time out to take stock, and learn, and reflect together. The aim of the iHV Leadership conference is for everyone to leave the conference feeling proud of the work that they do, valued, inspired, connected and energised with lots of new ideas to lead health visiting into the future.

iHV Leadership Conference 2023

The conference had a stellar line-up of national expert keynote speakers and panellists who skilfully covered an extensive breadth of topics including the impacts of child poverty, preconception care, preventative approaches to address the pressures on urgent care, health visiting research and education priorities (read the programme here). We were also delighted to be joined by Dame Ruth May DBE, the Chief Nursing Officer for England, who shared her new Vision for Nursing and Midwifery (including health visiting), hot off the press after it was launched at the CNO Summit a couple of weeks ago. Whilst this Vision is aimed at health visitors in England, a number of the priorities that the Vision is addressing will be similar priorities for all UK nations, with lots of transferable principles wherever health visitors are working.

Dame Ruth May DBE, CNO England, addressing iHV Leadership Conference 2023

In her keynote address, Dame Ruth said:

“I’ve been wanting to set out a Vision for nurses, midwives – and now health visitors – going forwards into the future… the Institute of Health Visiting has played a real part in that, wanting to make sure that health visiting, and school nursing, and public health nursing were definitely part of it.”

Dame Ruth went on to explain that it was “no accident” that “Prevention, protection promotion and reducing health inequalities” is the first priority area in her Vision. When the order of the priority areas were being decided, amongst 6 other competing important priorities, Ruth explained that it was important to highlight the “step change” needed to prioritise this area by putting it first. The remaining six ‘priority areas’ of Ruth’s Vision will also need to be translated into key actions for health visiting to ensure that they are achieved. The seven priority areas are:

Prevention, protection, promotion and reducing health inequalities
Protecting our planet
Person-centred care
Public and patient safety
Professional leadership and integration.

With two additional enabling areas focused on:

Professional culture
People and workforce development.

Ruth called on health visitors to join with her in delivering this Vision, which would start with understanding the data on health visiting workforce and service delivery – Ruth made a plea for help with this. The keynote address concluded with Ruth reiterating her commitment to health visiting, her desire to work with practitioners and the iHV, and to use her voice with the government of the day, stating, “I look forward to working with you – I look forward to working for you – and look forward to you challenging me, making sure we make this a reality”.

Ruth’s keynote address was then followed by an interesting panel discussion which included reflections and comments from Dr Helen Duncan (National Lead for Lifecourse Intelligence, Office for Health Improvement and Disparities), Liz Fenton (Deputy Chief Nurse, Workforce, Training and Education Directorate, NHS England) and Nicky Brown (Senior Nurse/Public Health Specialist Babies, Children and Young People, Office for Health Improvement and Disparities).

iHV Leadership Conference 2023

Overall, the conference has received excellent feedback in the post-event evaluations received so far. There was an incredible buzz in the room as delegates connected with old friends and made new ones – there is something very special about meeting together as a health visiting community in London in the festive season.

The conference was recorded and all delegates will have received links to access all conference materials today that we have received permission to share to support further reflection and learning (if you have not received these, please do get in touch with [email protected] who can help).

Posts from #iHVLeadership2023

For those of you who could not either join us on the day or could not follow the #iHVLeadership2023 hashtag on X (formerly known as Twitter), we’ve collected and made a little “Wakelet” collection of the day’s posts so you can follow some of what was shared. Please see below.

iHV welcomes new chief nursing officer (CNO) for England

Dr Ruth May has been announced as the new chief nursing officer (CNO) for NHS England – she will take over from Professor Jane Cummings.

Dr Ruth May, new chief nursing officer (CNO) for England

Dr May is currently executive director of nursing for NHS Improvement, but will become the new CNO for England once the management teams for NHS England and NHS Improvement have completed their merger into one new leadership team, called the NHS Executive Group.

Her appointment was welcomed by Dr Cheryll Adams CBE, Executive Director iHV, who said:

“I am delighted to hear of the appointment of Ruth May as Chief Nurse in NHS England. The Institute will look forward to working with her moving forwards.”