Kings College Hospital NHS Trust - 5 Minutes with Tracey Carter, Chief Nurse and Executive Director of Midwifery

Tell me a little bit about your career to date.

I have worked across London and east of England regions in many different roles in oncology & palliative care, corporate and operational roles. As a chief nurse for the last 9 years, I have taken a keen interest in my professional role and integration of nursing, midwifery, and allied health professionals (NMAHP). Midwifery has played a large part in my portfolio, supporting transformation and working across the LMNS.

You have recently joined Kings College Hospital NHS Foundation Trust what attracted you to the organisation?

The opportunity to work in an organisation with scale and complexity, and lead in a different way. It is always important to continue your learning as a leader. I am very excited to be at Kings and the opportunities with clinical academic careers, research, tertiary services and of course improving health inequalities and serving our local population.

Is there a role in your career which has been pivotal to your success?

There have been many different things that have contributed to this. However, being a chief nurse has enabled me to utilise my skills in a different way, to influence positively for professional development and safety.

Have you had any mentors, formally or informally during your career?

I have had some mentors over the years who have supported me in shaping my career and thinking. In recent years I have had a coach which has been very impactful.

What is the best piece of advice that you have received? How has it shaped you both as a leader and as a person?

Every day should be a day where you are pushed out of your comfort zone, otherwise you are not learning and doing your job to the best of your ability. I did not understand at first but they are absolutely right.

What are your ambitions for Nursing and Midwifery within Kings for the next 12-18 months?

When I arrived, I set out three priorities which I still think are the right things to focus on, and I continue to welcome feedback. 

Firstly, foremost and always, we’re here to provide safe high-quality patient care. Given the unrelenting demand for our services, this depends on us supporting the wellbeing of everyone who provides and supports patient care. 

Supporting positive behaviour and the use of restrictive practices (this is when we may need to restrain or contain people in their environment) is a big part of this. The policies, training and escalations for this are in the process of being developed - this is clearly an important issue, and is something I have regularly heard when visiting areas and attending different meetings. I am also looking at how we use the MEG audits (this is how we audit quality aspects such as infection control, medicines management and so on) and other data to measure nursing, midwifery, and allied health profession (NMAHP) outcomes, and the governance of ‘ward to board’.

Secondly, I am inspired by the amount of innovation and service improvement across our NMAHP colleagues. To continue to support and build on this, a focus on succession planning, career development, underpinned by mutual respect as a key part of our values, is very important to me. This is something I have seen across many teams I have met, and leaders striving to do this. There is always more we can do to support this, and I have been impressed by the honesty of those I have met and how they are taking this vital work forward. Thank you for your personal leadership. 

Thirdly, research, clinical academic careers with system working, and of course shared professional decision making. We now have our new King’s Academy, and with the implementation of Epic, our new electronic health record, we must grasp the opportunity that this affords us - and we’ll continue to be both clinically-led and digitally-driven to create a great environment to work in. 

I’m particularly keen to work in my role with the Trust Board to create the right culture across our organisation - one that is inclusive and which promotes equality, which is supportive of each other and where we communicate openly, where we want to make improvements to patient care so they are at the centre of what we do each and every day. There are a lot positives for us to build on together across NMAHP.

Tell me a little bit about the Director of Midwifery vacancy you currently have in your team.

This is a fundamental role in my senior nursing, midwifery and AHP team to lead midwifery services and the wider women’s health care group as part of the triumvirate at Kings College Hospital.  This role will have an impact on the experience and health of women, babies and their families locally and wider due to our tertiary services.  It is a great opportunity to develop the future direction of the service and transformation.

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