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Margaret Garbett has been appointed as Chief Nurse at University Hospitals Birmingham NHS Foundation Trust (UHB), following a robust and competitive recruitment process.

Margaret started her nursing journey in 1987, starting her nurse training at the Queen Elizabeth School of Nursing in Birmingham, training across many hospitals in the Birmingham area, and qualifying in 1990.

Following qualification, Margaret specialised in neuroscience nursing, working in various roles from staff nurse to ward sister in both neurology and neurosurgery, culminating in her role as Clinical Nurse Specialist for Neurosciences at Queen Elizabeth Hospital Birmingham. During this time Margaret also helped develop a specialist nursing course with the local university.

Margaret has always had a strong ambition to develop nursing leadership and improve patient care and has undertaken a number of nursing leadership roles within University Hospitals Birmingham NHS Foundation Trust (UHB).

Margaret said: “For me, the great thing about nursing is you can influence patient care, but you can also influence other people’s careers. I picked up early on in my career that leadership was really important. I was lucky because I worked with people who helped me grow and empowered me as a nurse.”

As a matron, Margaret worked initially within the elderly care directorate and helped develop and support the implementation of the Trust’s first Frailty Unit, then moved to multispecialty medicine and then her final matron role was within the Emergency Department.

During this time Margaret, as part of a wider Trust support team, was able to work with a number of other NHS trusts to provide specialist advice and support to help improve patient care and nursing practice.

Margaret then became Associate Director of Nursing within one of the surgical speciality divisions and during this time she also undertook the role of Staff Governor.

In December 2017, Margaret was seconded to the post of Interim Chief Nurse at Heart of England NHS Foundation Trust (HEFT), a post which was pivotal in bringing the nursing teams across UHB and HEFT together both pre and post-merger.

Following the merger in 2018, Margaret was successful in securing the post of Director of Nursing for UHB; this post was a direct support role to the Chief Nurse and also crucially brought together the operational nursing teams across the whole of the Trust.

Margaret was appointed Interim Chief Nurse on 3 May 2022.

Looking around her new home in the Trust’s headquarters, Margaret said: “I was here as a student nurse… and now I’m sitting in the Chief Nurse’s office!”

“I am very proud to have spent my career at UHB and have real loyalty to the Trust, which may be an old-fashioned value, but I know the grass won’t be greener for me anywhere else.

“What I would like people to see from my journey is that you can do it, and your journey doesn’t have to be straight forward – I actually went sideways a few times.

“I’m so pleased that I am now Chief Nurse and I am extremely grateful to everyone who has helped and supported me along the way. It is a privilege to work alongside, and now help lead, the 22,000 amazing colleagues that make up UHB.”