Birmingham City University’s Centre for International Health Partnerships is pleased to be working with the BACCN and IACCN on the dedicated low-income stream as part of this year’s conference. In this piece, we will explain how this strand of the conference will work and also discuss why this stream really matters to us all regardless of where we are in the world.
Developing the low‑income country stream is a deliberate and meaningful process. The aim is to remove the barriers that prevent many nurses in low‑income settings from participating in international discussions, especially those related to travel costs, visas, and long periods away from work. Offering a fully virtual format gives colleagues a practical way to take part without these pressures.
The stream includes all keynote sessions and oral presentations from virtual delegates. This ensures participants remain part of the main programme while sharing their own work and local realities. It also creates space for honest conversations about delivering critical care in settings with limited resources and staffing.
This approach reflects the conference theme, “Voices of Change.” Nurses working in low‑income countries bring important insights into resilience, adaptability and patient care under pressure. Including these voices strengthens our understanding of global practice and keeps the conversation grounded in the real challenges many teams face.
Presenters pre‑record their talks and then join live for questions. This keeps the process manageable for those working with time differences or unreliable internet connections, while still giving them a place in the live discussion.
Karin Gerber, BACCN Conference Director, explains this stream also holds personal significance for her. She trained as a nurse in South Africa and moved to the UK more than 20 years ago. However, her roots remain in Africa, and creating space for colleagues across the continent is especially important to her. It reflects where Karin come from, the people who shaped her early practice and the value of ensuring their voices are heard.
As we build this stream, Karin encourages nurses working in low‑income countries to submit an abstract and share their experiences. Your insights are essential, and this platform is designed to support you in contributing to the global conversation. Working on this stream reinforces a simple truth: when more people can contribute, the discussion becomes richer, fairer and more reflective of critical care nursing across the world.
Prof Joy Notter and Dr Chris Carter have been capacity strengthening in low-resource countries for decades and see it as essential that the voices of nurses from across the globe are heard, regardless of where they work. Like Karin they encourage nurses to submit abstract to this new stream as it is important that nurses from low-income countries take their rightful place in the international community of practice. During this time, there have been so many changes in the provision of critical care in low-income countries, therefore, this conference provides an opportunity for their voices to be heard on the international stage. Having worked with critical care nurses from low-resource countries there is so much we can learn from them, therefore, this conference stream will not only be relevant to colleagues from low-income countries but also their colleagues in the UK. This strand will provide an opportunity so share ideas, network, see difference perspectives and gain new colleagues.
We are pleased that Rutendo Tembo (critical care nurse in Zambia) and Ndaona Regina Botha (critical care nurse in Malawi) are our invited speakers who will be kicking off the virtual stream. This presentation will resonate with fellow critical care nurses working in resource constrained settings this presentation and provide an opportunity to share ideas, practice and network. For critical care nurses from high-income countries, it is hoped this presentation will challenge perceptions, identify challenges that encompass all settings and the need for sharing. It will set the scene for this section of the BACCN Conference.
This session will be of interest to those who participate or are interested in getting involved in global work. But its more than that it is about seeing different perspectives.