The RCN has cancelled its annual conference, Congress, to help ‘frontline’ members tackle the coronavirus pandemic.
RCN Congress, scheduled to take place 7 to 11 June 2020 in Liverpool, will not go ahead during the worsening coronavirus outbreak. As of Thursday, there are 3,269 confirmed coronavirus cases in the UK and 144 patients have died.
The RCN said in a statement: ‘It would simply not be right to divert our nursing workforce during this time. As an organisation all our energies are also required to support our members at this time.’
Each year, nursing staff – including both RCN members and non-members – meet at the flagship gathering to discuss nursing policy.
This year, topics to be debated at Congress included politics in nursing, pressures on newly qualified nurses and care homes.
It comes after Boris Johnson announced ‘drastic’ measures to tackle the coronavirus earlier this week, including asking everyone to stop ‘non-essential’ contact with others regardless of whether they have coronavirus.
