Patricia leads an executive team of directors which provides UK wide leadership across the four Countries. She is responsible for the provision of all employment relations and professional nursing functions across the four Countries of the UK, a budget of approximately £210M and approximately 1,100 staff. She has recently led the development of the College’s five-year strategic plan which sets the direction for the College and the profession for the next five years. She has also led the first ever four country industrial action on behalf of the profession and consequently the profession sees the RCN leading as the true voice of nursing across the UK.

Patricia has received several acknowledgements for leading the work of the college including being listed as one of the top 50 female leaders in Westminster (2023). She has represented the profession on key government advisory and select committees and continues to lead negotiations with the Westminster government on behalf of the profession. She has reinstated the Institute of Nursing Excellence within the RCN, which will see the College become a world leader in the provision of education and research. 

As CNO, Maria reports directly to the Permanent Secretary/HSC Chief Executive and is directly accountable to the Permanent Secretary and the Minister for Health for the provision of professional advice and statutory functions relating to Nursing and Midwifery. The CNO leads the Nursing, Midwifery and Allied Health Professions Group within the Department of Health and provides key advise on the Programme of Government Priorities. The CNO represents the CNOG at the weekly Top Management Group and is a member of the Departmental Board and the Performance, Transformation Executive Board. The CNO Chairs the Ministerial Professional Advisory Group for Nursing and Midwifery within the Department of Health.  Given the contribution and impact of the Professions on improving health and delivering world class, safe, effective health and social care and wider, the CNOG supports the achievement of the best health and care outcomes by providing transformational visionary leadership across the professions. The CNO is the lead for the NMAHP professions in NI and provides a key regulatory interface with the Nursing & Midwifery Council and the Health Care Professions Council (HCPC). The CNO represents Nursing and Midwifery in NI and worldwide. 

Maria is an accomplished professional visionary leader who is fully committed to ensuring excellent patient care that is safe, effective and person centred, provided by confident, supported and valued teams.  She has significant experience in operational, strategic and professional leadership across a wide variety of services and sectors within Health and Social Care. She has a diversity of expertise, knowledge and skills which as a senior leader enables Maria to be collaborative, adaptive and courageous.  She has a strong track record in delivery of corporate priorities, complex change processes and leading positive cultural change. 

After 32 years of international experience, Fran spent over 10 years as Midwifery Adviser to the World Health Organization, based at the WHO headquarters in Geneva. Fran is now based in UK, and is currently supporting midwifery in the WHO South East Asia Regional Office and the WHO India office.

Fran became a VSO midwife in Bangladesh in the mid-1980's. Fran’s career subsequently spanned sexual, reproductive, maternal and newborn health and gender in South East Asia, Africa, the Middle East and South America, working with a range of NGO's and UN agencies. Fran then spent 10 years as a Health Adviser to the UK department of international development (DFID) based in London, then Bangladesh and lastly Kenya (to cover Somalia). Additionally, Fran was a lecturer in gender and reproductive health at the University of Wales, Swansea, and taught on the Masters in Maternal Health in University of Wales, Cardiff. Fran is passionate about the rights of women, newborns and their families to have access to quality midwifery care everywhere, the rights of midwives to have high quality education, and ensuring that the care provided is based on evidence. Last, but not least, Fran believes that we must challenge medicalized assumptions in midwifery care and ensure that  - as midwives  - we must ask “different” questions.

Rita has an MSc in Lifelong Learning and has taught post graduate nurses for over 20 years in Leadership, Root Cause Analysis and Human Factors as well as Performance Management. She has delivered training in Root Cause Analysis to senior managers within Trusts and the Public Health Agency. Furthermore, she has created alternative teaching methods including writing and directing a play in the MAC Theatre called Regulating Rita (which allowed registered nurses to experience a regulatory hearing around  accountability and responsibility). Rita also developed a leadership challenge event which was initially aimed at senior nurses, but which has since been adapted for student nurses. This allowed them to experience significant but genuine problems and patient care issues in a safe environment. This experiential learning approach has been extremely well evaluated by all.