Nursing leadership summit: winter pressures

Winter places extraordinary pressure on health and care services, with seasonal infections, rising demand and workforce challenges combining to test systems across every setting. Following the significant pressures seen in winter 2025/26, there is a clear need to strengthen leadership, preparedness and collaboration ahead of the next season.

Held at the headquarters of the Royal College of Nursing, this Nursing Leadership Summit will bring together nurses from across the UK to share experience, learn from one another and work collectively to find ways to mitigate one of the most pressing challenges facing health and care.

We are inviting expressions of interest from nurses working across primary, community, acute and integrated care settings who are involved in leading, delivering or supporting services during periods of peak demand. This includes senior leaders, specialist nurses and general practice nurses.

Through expert-led sessions, shared learning and interactive discussion, the summit will explore:

• the latest intelligence on infection trends and service pressures
• the role of nurse leadership in managing demand and maintaining safe care
• practical strategies to support workforce resilience and wellbeing
• how data, digital tools and cross-sector collaboration can improve system readiness
• approaches to addressing health inequalities in winter planning

This summit is designed not only to reflect on recent experience, but to bring nurses together to shape solutions. It offers a unique opportunity to contribute to national conversations, build connections across the system and take away practical insights to strengthen your service and teams ahead of winter 2026/27.

Places are limited and will be allocated to ensure representation from across the UK and a range of care settings.

Click here to view the agenda

This summit is designed for nurses and nurse leaders across all health and care settings who play a role in winter preparedness and response. It will be particularly relevant to:

• General practice nurses
• Senior nurses and matrons involved in operational or clinical leadership, winter planning, and patient flow management
• Infection prevention and control (IPC) leads and public health nurses supporting vaccination, surveillance, and outbreak management
• Community, primary care, and social care nurses managing rising winter demand and coordinating care outside hospital
• Emergency, acute, and critical care nurses working at the frontline of seasonal pressures
• Occupational health and workforce wellbeing leads supporting resilience and staff safety during winter

This event is sponsored by CSL Seqirus, Moderna and Pfizer. CSL Seqirus, Moderna and Pfizer have provided financial support only and have had no involvement in the development of the agenda, selection of speakers, or content of the event, apart from their own symposiums.

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