Della Warren Director of Nursing

About me

Della is Heath Foundation Leadership Fellow and Director of Nursing at the Royal Hospital for Neurodisability.

At the time of her fellowship, Della was Assistant Director Clinical Development for Bedfordshire Primary Care Trust.

Della qualified as a Registered General Nurse in 1985. In 1989, she qualified in Midwifery and gained a Diploma with distinction in Health Visiting and Community Nursing. Della then went onto gain a BA in Health Care Studies in 1998 and an MA in Clinical Leadership in 2004. 

At the time of her fellowship, Della had been in her post since 2002. Her role was to provide clinical leadership for Nurses and Allied Health Professionals employed by Bedford PCT. As of April 2007, Della took up a new role as Assistant Director, Service Redesign with Bedfordshire PCT, applying her clinical leadership skills across a much wider health and care environment.

Della has worked nationally and internationally as a Director of Nursing and Chief Executive Officer with extensive experience within the NHS and the independent health and social care sector.

Della is passionate about raising standards of patient care, developing sound governance and clinical leadership, delivering service transformation and driving innovations in patient services to support new models of care.

She was awarded a Queen’s Nurse title in March 2013, in recognition of her continuing commitment to improving standards of patient care in the community and to learning and leadership, and has maintained the required level of clinical practice and competence to retain this title.

Della is a Leadership Fellow with the Health Foundation, a member of the Q community and a member of the Eastern Academic Health Science Network.

As a senior clinician, Della currently holds a national nursing leadership position with the Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) as an independent registrant panellist, hearing Fitness to Practise nursing and midwifery referrals as a member of the NMC Investigating Committee. She also holds a Specialist Advisor position with the Care Quality Commission (CQC).  

Della is a postgraduate researcher with the University of Surrey and is currently undertaking a PhD in clinical supervision and reflective practice. She is undertaking her research in collaboration with The Royal Hospital for Neurodisability in London, where she is currently leading nursing research.