New Chief Nurse appointed at Chesterfield Royal Hospital

A Derbyshire nurse – with more than 30 years of experience in nursing and senior leadership roles – is set to join Chesterfield Royal Hospital NHS Foundation Trust as its new Chief Nurse.

The Board of Directors will welcome Krishna Kallianpur in the autumn, when she will transfer from her current role (covering maternity leave) as Interim Chief Nurse at the University Hospitals of Derby and Burton NHS Foundation Trust.

Krishna is well-respected by colleagues across the Derbyshire health and social care system – and she has played a pivotal role throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, supporting the incident response and working with front-line with colleagues to understand their challenges, anxieties and fears.

Starting out as a staff nurse in 1987, she developed her nursing and senior leadership career at the former Derby City Hospital, Queens Hospital in Burton and at Royal Derby Hospitals. She describes herself as ‘passionate about nursing, patient safety and the health and wellbeing of staff’.

She comments: “I am absolutely delighted to be offered this prestigious, exciting and challenging role.  I am looking forward to working with everyone to support and lead improvement.  I really believe that exploring different ways of working, growing your own talent and supporting practice development enhances patient care.  With the COVID-19 pandemic continuing to be an operational challenge, we will need to continue to partner with others to transform how we look after our patients, our staff and the people in our communities.  It will be a privilege to do this at Chesterfield Royal, to make sure we provide exceptional care and workplaces.”

The Chief Nurse is responsible for the Trust’s 1800 nursing, midwifery and allied health professionals, working alongside the Medical Director to lead clinical performance, clinical governance, quality of patient care and experience.

Angie Smithson, Chief Executive says: “We are so pleased that Krishna is joining us.  She embodies the Trust’s values and I know she will absolutely want to make sure that we do all we can to ensure that every patient has safe, effective and personal care.  As an existing leader in our ‘Derbyshire system’, she knows our communities and our partners well – and I am sure she will thrive in her first executive director role, learning from her recent experiences in Derby where she is admired as ‘as an exemplary professional leader’.”

Krishna is replacing the Trust’s current Director of Nursing, Lynn Andrews, who is retiring after 40 years serving the NHS, taking the hospital from its former Care Quality Commission rating of ‘requires improvement’ to one of ‘good’ for the last four years.  Over the summer, Deputy Chief Nurse Sarah Ward will take up the ‘acting’ position until Krishna’s notice period at Derby is complete.

“This is a really exciting time for our nursing, midwifery and allied health professional teams,” continues Angie. “They are all determined to build on our existing platform of success.  With both Krishna and Sarah leading them I know we will realise more improvement, achieving even higher standards of care and enhanced patient and staff experience.  Recovering and restoring our services and learning to live and work alongside COVID-19 presents some real challenges for the NHS and I am confident they will both relish the opportunity to address those challenges.”

Chesterfield Royal Hospital supports the marketing and economic growth of the town through Chesterfield Champions, a network of over 180 organisations across Chesterfield and North Derbyshire.

Angie Angie Smithson, Chief Executive of Chesterfield Royal Hospital NHS Foundation Trust also sits on the Board of Destination Chesterfield.