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Biography
Professor Catherine Stoddart, Chief Executive Officer, Northern Territory Health, commenced with the Department of Health in March 2017 and was previously the Deputy Chief Nurse, and Deputy Chief Executive, at the Oxford University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust (in the UK) from March 2014. She has more than 20 years’ experience in executive positions and is a Nuffield Fellow (2000) and Churchill Fellow (2006). Her interest is improving the lives of vulnerable groups of people and has been the focus of many of her roles.
She is a Visiting Professor of Nursing at Oxford Brookes University and was awarded the 2011 Telstra Western Australia Business Woman of the Year for leadership and development of aboriginal employment programmes across Health. In September 2013, she received the Australian Public Service Medal in recognition of her contribution to health and innovative global community health volunteering programmes.
Catherine is an avid dog lover and renovator, and is once again a student.
First and foremost, are there any key leadership messages you want to get out to our readership?
As leaders, one of the hardest things to do at this time is to find enough mental space to maintain resilience. Leaders can work all the hours that God gives, but that will not serve our organisations well in the long run. This is a 6-month marathon and we need keep balance and maintain our resilience.
Tell us a little bit about your leadership role and how it is changing as a result of the pandemic?
As the chief executive officer (CEO) of Northern Territory Health, I am effectively the head of the Department of Health and of the state-funded provider healthcare organisations (so in UK terms, the Trusts) for the Northern Territory. We are an organisation with approximately 8000 staff serving a population of 240 000 people across 1.3 million square kilometres, so we are small, but have a lot of breadth. We provide care for a very, very vulnerable community—in fact, 30% of our population are aboriginal people, with significantly lower life expectation …