Dr Barbara Stilwell

Dr Stilwell has worked throughout the world as a champion for health workers and strong health systems. Before joining Nursing Now, she was IntraHealth International’s senior director of health workforce solutions and recently served as director of a health workforce and systems strengthening project in the West Bank/Gaza. From 1996–2006, she worked with the World Health Organization (WHO) in health systems development, co-authoring the WHO’s 2006 Health Report, collecting and analysing data regarding the impact of migrants on health systems in developing countries. Dr Stilwell was one of the first nurse practitioners in the UK, and, in 1991, as a principal lecturer at the Institute of Advanced Nursing Education at the Royal College of Nursing (RCN), introduced the first UK-based nurse practitioner programme. Dr Stilwell was made a Fellow of the Royal College of Nursing in 1994 in recognition of her work to introduce the nurse practitioner role to the UK. In 2008, Stilwell was named one of the most influential nurses of the past 40 years by the UK’s Nursing Times.