International Nurses Day: A conversation with Clare Fisher, Chief Nurse

Clare, can you tell us a little about your career and what led you into nursing?

I qualified as a nurse in 2001 and trained at St Mary’s Hospital in London, which shaped me both clinically and personally. I also worked as a healthcare assistant while I was training, so I saw patient care from different perspectives early on.

I worked my way up through the grades and spent around a decade there, eventually leaving as a matron. From there I was given the opportunity to help open a brand new hospital, which was a completely different experience. I was involved in everything from building design and patient flow to recruitment and pre‑CQC registration.

One moment that always sticks with me is reviewing the initial building plans and realising there were no sluice rooms on the wards. These are essential spaces in any clinical environment, particularly for infection control. It seems like a small detail, but it highlighted why clinical input is so important at every stage of service design. Retrofitting those spaces was challenging, but it reinforced for me how vital it is to have nurses involved in shaping healthcare environments from the outset.

Those experiences brought together my clinical background with operational leadership and have shaped the roles I have taken on since. At heart though, I am a nurse. Everything I have done, including senior leadership roles, has always been about patients and safe care.

What is your role as Chief Nurse today?

My role is to ensure that everything we deliver is clinically led, safe and aligned with regulatory and professional standards. I sit across multiple services, including face‑to‑face and virtual models of care, which means governance needs to be consistent but also adaptable.

That includes being accountable for clinical governance, CQC readiness, safeguarding, incident management and quality improvement. I work closely with clinical and operational colleagues to make sure that safety and quality are built into services from the start, not added on afterwards.

I am also the CQC Registered Manager, so there is a clear line of accountability for clinical standards across the organisation.

What does being a nurse‑led organisation mean in practice?

For me, it means that decisions are rooted in clinical judgement and patient impact. Before we launch or mobilise a service, we map pathways, understand risks and put the right processes in place so teams are set up to succeed.

It also means that when things do not go as planned, we respond openly and proactively. We investigate incidents, learn from them and feed that learning back into practice. A strong reporting culture is a sign of a safe organisation, not a failing one.

Ultimately, a nurse‑led approach keeps the focus where it should be, on patients, safety and care quality.

How do you lead and support your clinical governance team?

I am fortunate to work with a highly skilled governance team across nursing, clinical governance and operational governance. Leadership for me is about visibility, trust and clarity.

My role is not to hold everything centrally but to make sure people are confident in their responsibilities and supported to do the right thing. We work collaboratively across clinical and operational teams, because governance only works when it reflects how services are delivered.

We also share learning widely, not just at board level. Whether it is audit findings, incident themes or safeguarding learning, it is important that teams on the ground understand why governance matters and how it supports them.

What does a typical day look like for you?

Every day is different. That is one of the things I love about the role. One day I might be reviewing incident data and trends, another day working with teams on CQC readiness, safeguarding or service design.

There is also a lot of collaboration, with commissioners, providers and internal teams. Governance is not something that sits in isolation. It runs through everything we do, so my diary tends to reflect that.

As I often say, every day is a school day. I am constantly learning, because healthcare is always evolving.

What do you think makes nursing leadership so important right now?

The system is under huge pressure and that can never be ignored. Strong nursing leadership helps make sure that safety and care quality do not get lost in the conversation about activity and access.

Nurses understand how services operate in reality. We see where risk builds up, where processes fail and where small changes can have a big impact on patient experience. Bringing that perspective into leadership roles improves decision‑making across the board.

Finally, what does International Nurses Day mean to you personally?

It is a moment to recognise the profession and the impact nurses have at every level of care. Nursing is not just a job, it really is a vocation, and it stays with you throughout your career.

I am proud to be a nurse and proud of the teams I work with. Everything we do, whether in clinical care or governance, comes back to looking after patients. That is what International Nurses Day represents for me.

If you would like to learn more about our clinical governance function and how it supports the delivery of safe, effective services, please get in touch.