Abstract
Nursing had always been a career that Professor Dame Donna Kinnair, Chief Executive and General Secretary of the UK Royal College of Nursing (RCN) and Non-Executive Director, East London NHS Foundation Trust, wanted to be a part of. Her family came to the UK in the 1950s, part of the Windrush generation. “I have a brother who is a doctor, and a sister who is a midwife…nursing was actually a part of my family, it was also part of my family history in the Caribbean”, she says. Yet nursing wasn't the path she initially followed. Before nurses' training was moved into higher education, she explains, “if you could go to university, you were encouraged to. I think very much from the careers perspective, nursing wasn't seen as something that would enable you to progress to the best of your ability”. And so she started a university degree, and only later entered the profession as a student nurse in 1983. After working as a nurse in community and hospital settings she eventually took up leadership roles, including as Director of Commissioning for the London Borough of Southwark and Southwark Primary Care Trust. She realised that her nursing studies were just as taxing as her time in academia and that the move to make nursing a degree-bearing subject was fitting for this highly skilled profession. “We are people who study hard and provide a critical life-saving service”, she says.
Published Version
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call