Have Nurses Nothing Better to Do Than Discuss Climate Change?
by Dr Roger Watson 16 July 2026 9:00 AM
If you wanted a snapshot of why so many nurses feel increasingly disconnected from their professional bodies, you could do worse than read the minutes of a recent meeting of senior nursing figures. I am referring to the Fellows meeting of the Royal College of Nursing held on June 18th in London. I have the privilege of being a Fellow, but I was not, thankfully, present at the meeting.
One might imagine that a gathering of some of the most distinguished members of the profession would devote its attention to the crisis engulfing nursing: staff shortages, corridor care, collapsing university departments, declining recruitment, violence against staff, increasing workloads, and the endless haemorrhage of experienced nurses from the profession.
Those matters did eventually appear, but not before a lengthy discussion about climate change. Apparently, climate change is now “the biggest threat” to health. Not waiting lists, corridor care, the inability of patients to see a GP, the chronic shortage of Registered Nurses, the collapse of nursing education or emergency departments where patients spend days on trolleys.
The meeting heard presentations about environmental sustainability, adaptation strategies, maximum workplace temperatures, heat awareness campaigns, global partnerships, urban design, building cooling, the experience of colleagues overseas and the need to imagine “a day in the life of a nurse in 2050” working in a world two degrees warmer than pre-industrial temperatures.
https://dailysceptic.org/2026/07/16/have-nurses-nothing-better-to-do-than-discuss-climate-change/
