Career
She spent ten years as a nurse in clinical practice before moving into nursing management. She became a director of Leeds Teaching Hospitals National Health Service Trust in 1998. In 2002 she moved to Birmingham, taking up her current post in 2006.
In April 2011 she was named as the 28th highest paid employee (£212 500) in the English National Health Service. and in 2015 was said to be the 31st most influential person in the English National Health Service. She was made a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire in the 2012 New Year Honours and was one of the top ten Chief Executives in the National Health Service in 2013 according to the Health Service Journal.
In 2015 the Health Service Journal judged her as the third to top Chief Executive in the National Health Service.
