Ann Gow is deputy chief executive and director of the nursing systems improvement directorate in Healthcare Improvement Scotland (HIS). She joined HIS in May 2017 as its first nursing, midwifery and allied health professions (NMAHP) director. Before this she held various senior leadership posts as interim executive nurse director, associate nurse director for primary care, and IJB lead nurse in NHS Ayrshire and Arran before moving to Greater Glasgow and Clyde as chief nurse for regional services. Ms Gow has worked for the Scottish Government contributing to the development of policy on early years and on public health nursing. She secured the post as Scotland’s first nurse consultant in public health in NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde in 2000 and was alternate member for public health for Scotland at the inception of the NMC. Core to all of these roles has been a drive to improve the quality of care for those receiving services and a desire to improve experience for staff.

At HIS Ms Gow provides professional leadership for NMAHP professionals and their teams to continuously improve nursing and AHP-led care and for the systems improvement team who work on a number of key areas such as primary care improvement, dementia and frailty, access and hospital at home. Within HIS leads, her team leads on the development of the Scottish Quality Management system for Nursing and Midwifery; Excellence in Care (EiC). Ms Gow and the team are also responsible for supporting the implementation of newly introduced safe staffing legislation across Scotland working closely with government, healthcare professionals and employing boards to achieve this.

She spent two years as chair of the Scottish Executive nurse directors, she is an adviser to the RCN Foundations grants committee, judges the UK nurse of the year award and is a fellow of the Queen’s Nursing Institute Scotland. She has extensive networks with Scottish and UK regulators and improvement organisations to share intelligence and develop a Scotland-wide strategic approach to identifying and targeting areas for improvement in care.

She has a passion for child health, inequalities and improving care for vulnerable people.