Careers

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Paulette Lewis spoke to Frances Pickersgill about how combining nursing and management experience aided her career and led to an MBE

Earlier this year, management consultant Paulette Lewis was awarded an MBE in the Queen’s birthday honours list for her services to nursing and to children in Jamaica. After a long career in the NHS, first as a nurse and later as a midwife, she is now advising a new community and acute integrated care organisation (ICO) at Ealing Hospital NHS Trust in London. She says: ‘I am finding that my combined experience in nursing and midwifery and in leadership and management positions is paying dividends now. I can support some fundamental changes in the relationships between health and social care that such integrated organisations make possible. ‘The population is changing,’ she says. ‘The very young and the very old populations are expanding, alongside an increase in cultural diversification. But while patient need is growing, the resources available to the NHS are not. Ms Lewis believes integrated care is important. ‘As these new organisations take shape, I have been advising Ealing, Brent and Harrow ICOs on their new relationships with each other and with social care organisations in the respective local authorities. ‘Their future lies in supporting people who have a combination of health and social care needs, mainly children and older people. People with long-term health problems have long-term social needs as well.’ Ms Lewis says her experience at a senior level in nursing and

NURSING STANDARD

TIM GEORGE

A STRATEGIC APPROACH large-scale change, and then devising creative solutions for the professional and workforce consequences,’ she says. By her own admission, Ms Lewis’ self-confidence, ability to focus on a task and forensic approach to problems have helped her to success, certainly in her senior posts.

Ability to listen

Secrets to Paulette Lewis’s success:  Management and leadership training.  Coaching.  Equality and diversity training.  Training in managing organisational change.  Networking and sharing good practice.  Keeping abreast of developments.  Finding a good mentor. midwifery stands her in good stead. She was previously director of nursing and midwifery at what is now Croydon University Hospital in south London, and later seconded to review maternity services throughout London during the mid-2000s. ‘These roles gave me a vast amount of strategic experience and skills, detecting where problems can arise in organisations undergoing

‘I am a fair but firm manager and I pride myself on my approachability, my willingness to listen to staff and clients, and my ability to be non-judgemental,’ she says. As a high-achieving black nurse and midwife, Ms Lewis believes she should be an ambassador and a role model for other back and minority ethnic (BME) nurses, especially those in the following generation. ‘Not nearly enough BME nurses are making it into senior positions in the NHS,’ says Ms Lewis. ‘That is not due to lack of talent or for want of trying. Many BME nurses have received training in excess of their non-BME colleagues and have experiences, positive and negative, that equip them perfectly for senior positions,’ she says. ‘Organisations are certainly missing a trick if they ignore this talent in their midst’ NS RESOURCES RCN equality and diversity zone: tinyurl.com/RCNE-D october 1 :: vol 29 no 5 :: 2014 63

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