Dear Dr Chan:

RE: WHO needs Nursing leadership

As President and co-Chairs of the global organisation International Conferences on Community Health Nursing research (ICCHNR) we write to convey our extreme concern at the decision to exclude nursing leadership from the World Health Organisation policy structures. This was raised at the international symposium on community health nursing research in Alberta, Canada on May 5th 2011 at which 16 countries were represented.

In this critical period when WHO is reforming Primary Health Care, working towards reducing the social determinants of ill health and reaching the Millenium Development Goals, we urge the World Health Assembly to re-establish the post of Chief Nursing Scientist and as a consequence to significantly enlarge the nursing leadership within WHO. There can be no greater injustice to the health of the people we all serve than to deny them the leadership they deserve from nursing,

Remember the People.

We look forward to hearing a positive response,

Yours sincerely

Professor Fiona Ross, President

Professor Sally Kendall

Professor Rosamund Bryar

Co-Chairs, ICCHNR

www.icchnr.org