Baroness Mary Watkins

Professor Watkins is a nurse academic who has held university posts and non-executive roles in the NHS and not-for-profit sectors. She qualified as a general nurse in 1976 and a mental health nurse in 1979 and received her PhD from the Florence Nightingale Faculty of Nursing and Midwifery at Kings College in 1985. She was Deputy Vice Chancellor of Plymouth University from 2009 to 2012 and a Visiting Professor at Kings College London from 2016-2018.

Professor Watkins was the inaugural editor of the Journal of Clinical Nursing and has has published extensively and presented at conferences contributing to debates on subjects ranging from nursing, the cost of social housing for NHS workers, public health and social care. She is currently a Trustee of the Florence Nightingale Museum Trust.

In December 2015, she was appointed as a Crossbench member of the House of Lords as Baroness Watkins of Tavistock.