Rachel Hollis FRCN

Chair and Member for Yorkshire and the Humber, January 2022 - December 2025

Rachel Hollis is Honorary Nurse Advisor for Children’s Cancer in the Leeds Children’s Hospital at the Leeds Hospitals NHS Trust. Rachel trained originally as a Registered General Nurse in London before going on to become a Registered Children’s Nurse in Leeds where she spent most of her professional working life.

Rachel is a children’s cancer nurse, and has played an active role in the development of children’s cancer nursing, and children’s cancer services, at the national level in the UK. She represented the RCN on the Guidance Development Group for NICE ‘Guidance on Improving Outcomes in Children and Young People with Cancer’ (2005). She went on to represent the RCN on the NHS England Clinical Reference Group for Children and Teenage Cancer.

Rachel is a past Chair of the former Paediatric Oncology Nurses Forum and was the first Chair of the Children and Young People’s Specialist Care Forum. She was made a Fellow of the RCN in recognition of her contribution to the nursing of children with cancer. Rachel has a particular interest in international health care and is a member of the nursing group within the International Society of Paediatric Oncology (SIOP). She is a Trustee of ‘World Child Cancer’, a charity which works to support twinning programmes and capacity building in a number of low- and middle-income countries. Rachel and the team in Leeds are actively involved in supporting a children’s cancer programme in North West Cameroon.

Rachel is also a Trustee of Young Lives vs. Cancer, the UK’s largest charity supporting the families of children with cancer, and lobbying for improved services nationally.

Outside of work Rachel enjoys travel and walking; often combining the two. She has the Yorkshire Dales and Moors on her doorstep, and travelling further afield has climbed Mount Kilimanjaro twice!

Get in touch: PNC.YorksandHumber@rcn.org.uk

Colin Baker

Member for South West, June 2022 - December 2025

Originally from High Wycombe in Buckinghamshire, Colin has been working in the NHS for over 30 years and qualified as an RMN in 1996 at the Queen Elizabeth School of Nursing, Birmingham under project 2000. He has worked in Gloucestershire since 2000 and spent 17 years as an inpatient ward manager in various services for older persons mental health. In 2015 he became the Lead Nurse for Dementia and currently still holds this role as well as Community Service manager for the counties Dementia services.

Colin has also worked in Learning disabilities, working age mental health services, PICU, eating disorders, substance misuse, care homes and hospice care. However, the majority of his career has been in Older persons mental health and specifically dementia services working closely with Physical health and voluntary services.

He completed his Honours Degree in 1998, the Mary Seacole Leadership Award in 2016 and the Older Persons Fellowship at Kings college London in 2019. He has led on falls prevention Quality Improvement strategies for people with dementia for most of his career and has presented this work at several national and international forums. He is also a member of the British Geriatric Society

Colin has a career long involvement in unions and has held senior staff side roles for many years within Gloucestershire. Outside of work he has four children and is a keen mountaineer, hiker and runner as well as enjoying archery, fishing and art. He also has supported the charity Wellchild as part of their mountain safety team for their annual Three Peaks Challenge for several years.

Get in touch: PNC.SouthWest@rcn.org.uk

Aquiline Chivinge MBE

Member for East Midlands, January 2024 - December 2027

Aquiline trained in Zimbabwe as a Registered General Nurse and Midwife before moving to Scotland and Australia, and settling in Nottingham in 1997. She has over 28 years of NHS experience.

Aquiline has worked on different medical and surgical wards at Nottingham University Hospitals NHS Trust as she progressed from staff nurse to deputy sister, sister, matron, Clinical Lead post and now as Assistant Director Nursing /Midwifery and AHP –Inclusion. She holds the Honorary Professor role at University of Nottingham School of Health Sciences and is an Advisory Board Member on the Forum for Shared Governance. Listening to staff and patient voices has enabled Aquiline to collaborate, innovate and develop new pathways, some of which include local communities. This work was a contributory factor in Aquiline's receipt of an MBE in 2020, for services to patients from ethnic minority backgrounds.

Aquiline served for two terms as a member of the East Midlands Board before taking up her seat on the Professional Nursing Committee.

Aquiline is passionate about compassionate leadership and listening to our member voices ensuring that every voice is heard and concerns acted on. She believes that together we are stronger.

Get in touch: PNC.EastMidlands@rcn.org.uk

Alison Paterson

Member for Eastern, January 2024 - December 2027

Alison is the Lead Cancer Nurse at East and North Hertfordshire NHS Trust. Qualified for over 20 years she started her nursing career on a Bone marrow transplant ward moving onto intensive care and completing her Masters in Advancing Critical Care Nursing at Kings College London. More recently she has held CNS roles in Haemato-Oncology and Acute Oncology including a Lecturer-Practitioner role qualifying as an Independent Prescriber and practicing at an advanced level.

Alison has been a member of Blood Cancer UK Nurses group since 2018 and a member of their Healthcare Professional Advisory Group since 2020 contributing to the APPG on Blood Cancer. She is also the Lead for the East Of England Cancer Alliance Lead Cancer Nurses Group.

Get in touch: PNC.Eastern@rcn.org.uk

Sonia Henry

Member for London, January 2024 - December 2027

Sonia is a Registered Nurse with over 30 years of nursing experience. Sonia has worked in women’s health and medical and surgical including primary and community healthcare. Sonia has held senior nursing roles, providing leadership and management within specific areas of clinical and quality governance. Sonia joined Royal Trinity Hospice Charity as their Director of Nursing in August 2022. She has worked on raising the profile of nursing, across educational institutions, recruitment and retention of nurses, including Return to Practice and International Nursing. Sonia recently supported the healthcare assistants to train as nursing associates into the hospice core nursing workforce. She is passionate about continually improving the representation that reflects the diversity of the nursing workforce to ensure safe staffing levels.

Get in touch: PNC.London@rcn.org.uk

Oladunni Akinbulumo

Member for North West, January 2024 - December 2027

Get in touch: PNC.NorthWest@rcn.org.uk

Tim Grace

Member for Northern, January 2024 - December 2027

Tim Grace works in a community mental health service as a Psychological Therapist, where he is a part of the Leadership Team. Though he is an independent prescriber, his main professional interests relate to working with people with voice-hearing experiences, service development, teaching, supervision and research. He has been involved in a number of research studies, though the most notable was working as part of a team whose study was published in The Lancet.

Tim’s clinical role involves providing highly specialist psychological interventions, including cognitive therapy and Mindfulness Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT) for people troubled by their mental health. He provides clinical supervision for a range of professionals and has supervised postgraduate students on MSc university courses and postgraduate CBT courses in the Northern region.

However, the most rewarding aspect of his role is his direct clinical work; he feels very privileged to be in a position to help people whose lives have been affected by trauma and adversity, and has learned considerably from the people he has worked with. Tim also works together with people with lived experience of mental health problems in other settings, such as developing workshops, deliver training to staff, and service development. Clinical leadership is an interesting and important part of Tim’s role, as it allows him to influence patient care across services while still retaining the individual clinical work that he enjoys.

The RCN has been a part of Tim’s professional life for most of his career. Tim was lucky enough to spend 15 months on secondment with the RCN, which he reports was a valuable time which provided him with many skills and experiences to draw on in his NHS role. Being part of the RCN Professional Nursing Committee is a relatively new role, but one which he is already finding very rewarding, and in which he is looking forward to contributing to over the coming years.

When Tim is not working, he enjoys spending time with his family, and has a wide variety of interests, including travel, football (spectating), eating out and theatre. Recently he has tried his hand at growing his own fruit and vegetables, with varying degrees of success. Tim has also been learning Chinese for the past few years, though he thinks it will be many more years before he can claim to speak Chinese.

Get in touch: PNC.Northern@rcn.org.uk

Donna Gallagher

Member for Northern Ireland, January 2024 - December 2027

Donna has been a member of the RCN for over 20 years. She joined the RCN Professional Nursing Committee in January 2024 and also sits on the Northern Ireland Board as an ex-officio member. 

Having commenced nurse training in 1989, Donna specialised in mental health nursing, with a keen interest in the physical and mental health of older people. She moved in to further education and then higher education as a lecturer and senior lecturer at The Open University. Donna was influential in the development of The Open University’s nursing programme, working across HSC trusts and the independent sector in Northern Ireland and as part of a wider UK provision. She has also worked with the NMC as a programme reviewer.

As member of the Professional Nursing Committee, Donna hopes to influence and inform a wide range of topics and policies on behalf of RCN members and use her knowledge, skills and networks to support the work of the RCN. She continues her passion for mental health and recovery, and continues to practise as a cognitive behavioural psychotherapist, keen to support others on their life journey.

Get in touch: PNC.NorthernIreland@rcn.org.uk

Martha Gill

Member for Scotland, January 2022 - December 2025

Martha currently works as a community island nurse in Orkney. This role covers community nursing, practice nursing and emergency care. She is a dual citizen and has lived and worked as a nurse in Scotland and Australia. Moving back to Australia after completing her nursing degree in Glasgow Caledonian University in 2010, Martha worked as a practice nurse and aged care nurse and in community palliative care. Completing a Post Graduate Certificate in General Practice Nursing from Flinders University in 2013. She was involved in union work while in Australia receiving an activism award from ANMF for her work in an enterprise bargaining agreement.

In 2016 she moved with her husband and, then 2 year old, daughter from Canberra to Orkney to commence her current role. Since then she has been involved with the RCN as a steward sitting on her health board's area partnership forum. Martha's specific interest are in remote and rural health care delivery and service models and ensuring the voice of nursing is heard and advocated for at all times. 

Get in touch: PNC.Scotland@rcn.org.uk

Mary Codling

Member for South East, January 2022 - December 2025

Mary has worked in the NHS for 40 years starting in Essex where as soon as she qualified she began her nursing career in the community. Mary later moved to Berkshire where she has worked across all localities of the county in various roles from community nursing for people with learning disabilities, managing community teams, as an associate lecturer, epilepsy nurse specialist, best interest assessor, independent nurse prescriber and currently as a primary healthcare lead for learning disabilities.

During her career Mary has undertaken further studies such as a Diploma in Counselling, a first degree in community studies, a Masters in Health Science and an MPhil in research which were instrumental in further enhancing her clinical skills. Alongside this, Mary is also a reviewer for the NIHR Dissemination Centre. Over the years Mary has published a number of papers sharing some of the innovative projects that have helped in developing services. In the mid 2000’s Mary was awarded the title of Queens Nurse for her contribution to practice and continues to work with the Queens Institute on nursing topics.

The RCN has always been part of Mary’s life having first become a member in 1980 and later as a South East representative on the Quality Improvement network. Over the years Mary has been instrumental in her role within the RCN linking it with her connectivity to members in practice, working with both to promote the profession of nursing and key areas of health. Mary’s special interests are epilepsy, health promotion, family dynamics, research, communication and consultations with patients, end of life care, education and person centred care.

Get in touch: PNC.SouthEast@rcn.org.uk

Dr Carolyn Middleton MBE

Member for Wales, January 2022 - December 2025

Carolyn has worked as a nurse in NHS Wales for almost 44 years. Her career started as an Enrolled Nurse in a variety of surgical settings; after achieving her RN she worked as a pain management CNS, she has also held several senior divisional roles. The culmination of her career was being appointed as the Associate Director of Nursing at the  Aneurin Bevan University Health Board, a role that enabled her to gain wide ranging experience of working at a national level in Wales, linking closely with the CNO’s team and Health Education and Improvement Wales. Following semi-retirement Carolyn continues to work within the corporate nursing team. She has been an RCN member since the late 1970’s and has been an RCN Wales Board Member for the past year.

Academically Carolyn achieved a first class honours degree, a masters degree in pain management and a professional doctorate in nursing from Cardiff University; Carolyn is an Independent prescriber. She has co-written and edited a clinical text book and has written over twenty practice related journal articles. Carolyn is currently a visiting professor at the University of South Wales and was awarded an MBE for services to Nursing in the Queens Birthday Honours list 2020.

Carolyn's specific interests include medicines management and prescribing, professional development and regulation. Carolyn was a key member of the NMC revalidation work stream leading the largest UK pilot site. She has also been actively involved in the iterative processes undertaken by the NMC to review the English language and OSCE requirements for overseas nurses registering in the UK.

Get in touch: PNC.Wales@rcn.org.uk

Raymond McMorrow FRCN

Member for West Midlands, January 2022 - December 2025

Ray commenced his nursing career as a Student in mental health branch at Goodmayes Hospital, in Ilford (then Essex) in 1978, and continued his education in learning disability at the Princess Marina Hospital, Northampton, completing that training in 1982.

He worked for two stints at St. Andrew’s Hospital Northampton between 1982-83 and 1987-89. In the interim period of 1983-87 he worked as a staff nurse in Bermuda where he became interested in the presentation of mental illness in the Black community and in relation to issues of transgenerational experiences. He brought back to the UK a commitment to culturally informed practice within hospital settings and the community. He also joined the RCN whilst in Bermuda, and retains an awareness of the importance of the organisation to its international members. During his second period at St Andrews he completed the EHB 603 course in Child Mental Health and his career in children’s nursing was commenced.

He has been a CPN in Solihull, Senior Community Nurse in Southern Derbyshire, Nurse Consultant for Community CAMHs at Birmingham Children’s Hospital, Designated Nurse for Safeguarding Children at Derby CCG and the Health Advisor at the NWG response unit for Child Sexual Exploitation and trafficking. In recent times Ray has returned to his care practice as a specialist Nurse in CAMHS with Midland Partnership NHS Trust.  Ray also serves as Safeguarding Advisor to Derby Cathedral, and to Freeman Collage in Sheffield.

He has completed an MA with the Tavistock Clinic in Psychodynamic Psychotherapy, has trained in a number of therapeutic approaches and currently practising Mentalization with young people at risk of suicide. Ray is particularly interested in the relationship between therapeutic approaches and new learning in neuro-development.

With the RCN he has been the Chair of the CYP Staying Healthy Forum, has ran numerous events at Congress, represented the RCN on RCPCH child protection committee, at the Independent inquiry into Child Sexual Exploitation. He has advised the Academy of Royal Colleges, Royal College of Psychiatry, NHE England, Public Health England, Football Association on Safeguarding children policy. He has worked with Brook, Childrens Society, and numerous other services in developing education tools for practitioners. Ray represents RCN on the MindEd consortium. Ray was made a Fellow of the RCN in 2021.

He also received a Commendation from the Chief Police Constable of Derbyshire for his support in protecting young people.

Get involved: PNC.WestMidlands@rcn.org.uk

Tracie Culpitt

Nursing Support Worker member, January 2022 - December 2025

Tracie works in Education and Organisational development at a NHS Trust as the lead for Quality Assurance. She currently works with bands 2-4, around apprenticeship standards. She also sits on the RCN Education and Clinical Governance Forums. As the Nursing Support Worker member of the committee, Tracie is a voice for the unregistered workforce. She is an ex-officio member of the RCN UK Nursing Support Workers committee.

Get in touch: PNC.NursingSupportWorker@rcn.org.uk

Sophie Du Plessis

Student member

Biography to follow.