Chief Nursing Fellowship Programme
The Chief Nursing Fellowship Programme, co-created and run in collaboration between Central and North West London NHS Foundation Trust (CNWL) and Tavistock Consulting. The programme is aimed at Band 7/8a global majority mental health nurses, who are embedded in clinical practice and wishing to develop their nursing leadership careers. Successful candidates are drawn from a competitive pool of applicants.
Situation
The under-representation of global majority staff in senior roles is a systemic issue across the NHS, as evidenced by multiple reports and data analyses.
Central and North West London NHS Foundation Trust (CNWL) has acknowledged the under-representation of global majority staff in senior roles and has taken steps to address this issue. The Chief Nursing Fellowship Program is part of CNWL’s broader initiatives to establish a talent pool of future Nurse Leaders, with a focus on nurses from a black and minority ethnic background who are often under-represented in more senior leadership programmes.
Our approach
Central and North West London NHS Foundation Trust (CNWL) leads on providing successful applicants with secondment opportunities, enabling them to step away from their clinical roles for part of the week to focus on leadership development. CNWL provides mentorship with senior leaders across clinical and operational services. Tavistock Consulting provides three core components of the programme:
- Individual coaching
To support Fellows in exploring their personal leadership identity, working through challenges in role, and deepening their capacity for self-reflection, emotional resilience, and strategic authority in complex systems. - Development sessions
To blend key concepts, tools, and techniques with reflective and experiential learning. These sessions equip Fellows to take up their nurse leadership roles with confidence and authority, drawing on systems psychodynamics to enhance their capacity to lead across systems, engage with uncertainty, and work effectively with difference. Fellows are supported to make sense of their experiences and take advantage of opportunities for sustained development and career progression beyond the Fellowship. - Joint coaching sessions with peers
To create a relational learning environment that fosters mutual support, shared insight, and the development of a peer coaching stance. These sessions help Fellows work through real-time challenges, build leadership reflexivity, and cultivate collective confidence in navigating role, authority, and change.
l especially enjoyed the Tavistock sessions. It was a sate place to learn, breathe and have development sessions that upskilled understanding of teams, systems, power, authority, diversity, inclusion. And understand the power on influencing people when empathy, self-awareness and self-management are embedded in a leader.
Over the last three years, the fellowship has become an integral part of the Trust to demonstrate excellent nursing practice and promote the identity and value of nurses in CNWL and beyond.
Helen Willetts, former Chief Nurse CNWL
Impact
The programme has demonstrated tangible benefits:
- Career progression: Participants have advanced into senior roles post-fellowship.
- Research and publication: Fellows have contributed to academic discourse, with publications in journals such as Nursing Management,
- Enhanced confidence and skills: Participants report increased confidence, improved leadership and influencing skills, and a greater understanding of strategic processes within the NHS.
Over the last three years, the fellowship has become an integral part of CNWL, demonstrating excellent nursing practice, promoting the identity and value of nurses in CNWL and beyond. Hear from the nurses themselves and read about their research projects .