13.01.17
RCM chief executive announces retirement
Cathy Warwick, the chief executive of the Royal College of Midwives (RCM), has announced that she will be stepping down from the role to retire at the end of August.
When she retires later this year aged 65, Warwick will have been the RCM’s CEO for almost nine years after assuming the post in 2008.
Under Warwick’s leadership the RCM, which represents the majority of midwives in the UK, has grown its membership to record levels and positioned itself as an influential and forward-thinking force within health.
Warwick played a central role in the development of the national maternity review Better Births, the maternity transformation programme published by the government last year labelled as ‘a Five Year Forward View for maternity care’. Its recommendations are now being implemented.
Warwick was also instrumental in directing internal modernisation at the RCM including enhanced services for the organisation’s members.
“I have absolutely loved my time at the RCM,” Warwick said. “It has been a privilege to work with all of our wonderful members and to do everything we can together to ensure women and their babies get the best possible care.
“The RCM is a great organisation and I will be very sad when I leave. I feel very sure that the next CEO will take the RCM on to even better things.”
Warwick studied nursing and midwifery at Edinburgh University and Queen Charlotte’s Hospital in London in the mid-1970s before beginning her career as a midwife across a variety of settings in hospitals and in the community.
She then held a number of senior posts in midwifery education and as an international lecturer on midwifery issues, acting as Director of Midwifery and General Manager for Women and Children’s Services at King’s College Hospital in London prior to joining the RCM.
Warwick received a CBE for services to healthcare in 2006 and was awarded an honorary doctorate from St George’s and Kingston University, London, in 2007.
The RCM will now begin to search for a new CEO, with Warwick set to work with the Board and the staff team at the RCM to support a smooth transition for her successor.
(Image c. RCM)
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