Nurse Lifeline to be official partner of 2022 Nursing Times Awards

The charity offers a national, free and confidential peer-to-peer listening service for nursing staff to support mental and emotional wellbeing.

“We want to use our platform to empower, to encourage and to amplify the voices of those within the nursing and midwifery workforce”

Natalie Greening

Developed by a small group of frontline staff united by an acute awareness of the pressures facing the workforce, Nurse Lifeline is the first nursing- and midwifery-led initiative of its kind.

The aim is to create space for nurses, midwives, healthcare assistants and the friends and family of such staff to “offload and chat with someone who gets it”.

It is open to nurses, midwives or healthcare support workers, whether they are newly registered or experienced, a student, nursing associate, in the military or retired.

Family members or friends of someone in the profession can also use the service. In addition, the charity has a website providing useful contacts, blogs and other resources.

Those behind the initiative, which was founded by Natalie Greening and Keira Dovey, highlight it was developed by “nurses and midwives, for nurses and midwives”.

The idea for the charity originated in 2019 and by June 2021, its founders were able to launch a 12-month pilot of the listening service.

However, they said “it’s been a pretty tough ride”, navigating the process of setting up a charity and manning the listening service while working in full-time clinical roles.

At present, their main ambitions are to raise awareness of the charity and to increase the number of volunteers they have for the service, including finding retired nurses who would like to help.

They explained that they hit a problem last year where they did not have enough volunteers to meet the demands of the listening service, which is available by calling 0808 801 0455.

The Nurse Lifeline listening service is currently available Monday to Friday, from 7pm to 11pm. Ultimately, their ambition is to provide a 24-hour helpline.

Natalie Greening, founder and chair of Nurse Lifeline, said: “We’re all different, and we all have different needs.

“But one thing we have in common is that we all need access to wellbeing resources and sometimes we just need to chat with someone who gets it.

“As of June 2021, Nurse Lifeline became the first free, national and confidential, peer-led listening service run by nurses and midwives for nurses and midwives,” said Ms Greening.

Natalie Greening

“We’re excited to be joining the ranks of other responsive organisations and brilliant wellbeing initiatives that have been established in response to staff needs,” she said.

“And we’re not planning to stop here. We want to use our platform to empower, to encourage and to amplify the voices of those within the nursing and midwifery workforce through sharing uplifting stories of those who have overcome challenges, and through creating a service that can be shaped and contributed to at all levels,” she added.

You can learn more about Nurse Lifeline by attending the 2022 Nursing Times Awards. The awards are currently open for entries across 25 categories.

You have until midnight on Friday 13 May 2022 to submit your entry. The awards will be held at the Grosvenor House Hotel on Park Lane in London on Wednesday 26 October.