This year brings international recognition of the contribution that the profession of nursing makes to global health. The executive board of the World Health Organization (WHO) met in Geneva on 30 January 2019 and designated 2020 to be the ‘Year of the Nurse and Midwife’, in honour of the 200th birth anniversary of Florence Nightingale (WHO, 2019a). This coincides with the publication of ‘The state of the worlds nursing report’ (WHO, 2019b), which was developed in collaboration with the Nursing Now Campaign and the International Council of Nurses (ICN).