Wendy Matthews OBE
Chief Midwife, Director of Nursing, East of England
NHS England
BIOGRAPHY
Wendy Matthews, OBE, PhD, RN, RM, BSc (Hons)
After qualifying as a nurse, Wendy’s passion for partnership working with patients took her into midwifery. She worked as a qualified midwife in various hospitals and in 1997 became Director of Women and Children Services.
In 2012, Wendy was appointed as the Director of Midwifery at Barking, Havering and Redbridge University Hospitals NHS Trust, one of the largest maternity units in the country. Within three years, Wendy and her team had transformed the service, taking it from a being in special measures to a ‘good’ rating with the Care Quality Commission. During this time, she also led a reconfiguration of the service’s community boundaries, working with commissioners and neighbouring providers, opened a co-located midwifery birth center and reconfigured inpatient maternity services onto one hospital site.
In 2015, Wendy was asked to become the Interim Chief Nurse at the Trust.
Passionate about excellent patient care, Wendy was awarded the Florence Nightingale Leadership Scholarship in April 2017. This provided her with the opportunity to experience internationally the power and impact of patient experience and outcomes.
She was a member of the London Maternity Clinical Strategic Network until 2018, co-chair of the East London LMS and Senior Responsible Office for maternity workstream in the STP in East London.
Wendy was awarded an OBE for services to midwifery at Buckingham Palace in May 2018 and awarded an Honorary Doctorate from University of East London in recognition for her services to nursing and midwifery in 2019.
In 2018, Wendy joined Mid Essex Hospital Services NHS Trust, Broomfield Hospital as Director of Nursing providing expert leadership to nursing and midwifery. In May 2020 she was appointed as the Chief Midwife and Director of Nursing in East of England.
In December 2021 her passion to improve experiences for patients including those nearing the end of their lives has led to her being appointed as a Trustee for Havens Hospices in Essex.
