Caroline Alexander CBE, Group Chief Nursing Officer | Executive Directors

Caroline graduated as a nurse in 1987 from Edinburgh University (BSc/RGN) and has an MSc in Nursing Studies from South Bank University (2001). From 1987 to 1993 she specialised in nursing older people in Edinburgh and then London at Guy’s Hospital as a ward sister. Caroline then worked for the Foundation of Nursing Studies for three years supporting nurses to use research in practice. 

In 1998 Caroline returned to the NHS and worked in Tower Hamlets in a range of roles within older people’s services. In 2005, Caroline took up her first director post, as director of nursing and therapies within Tower Hamlets PCT. With the clustering of PCTs in London in 2011, she took on the director of nursing and quality within NHS East London and the City initially and then within NHS North East London when the clusters merged in 2012 until she joined NHS England as regional chief nurse for London in April 2013. Caroline took up her current role of chief nurse for Barts Health in March 2016. 

Caroline was a 2008 Florence Nightingale leadership scholar and has been awarded honorary doctorates from City, University of London in 2017, Middlesex University in 2018 and University of East London in 2021.  She is a trustee of the Foundation of Nursing Studies. In 2020 she was made a CBE in the Queen’s Birthday Honours.

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