Ruth Northway

Northway, who is from Llantrisant in Mid Glamorgan, Wales,[1] was born in 1961[2] and educated at Teignmouth Grammar School.[3] She decided to become a nurse because she "enjoyed working with people with learning disabilities and this was the best way that [she] could do it",[4] and subsequently spent some time as a learning disability nurse.[2] In 1989, she started going into nurse education.[2] In 1994, she graduated from the University of Wales, Newport, with a Master of Science degree in economics, and started working at the University of Wales College of Medicine (UWCM) as a lecturer.[3] In 1998, she obtained a PhD from the University of Bristol, with her thesis "Oppression in the lives of people with learning difficulties: a participatory study."[5][6]

In 1999, Northway moved from the UWCM's School of Nursing to the University of Glamorgan, which would later merge into the University of South Wales (USW) in 2013.[2] As part of the USW academic staff, she became the United Kingdom's first Professor of Learning Disability Nursing,[4] and in 2002, became the leader of the university's Unit for Development in Intellectual & Developmental Disabilities.[7]

As an academic, Northway specialises in learning disabilities, participatory action research, and safeguarding.[2][8][1] Her academic accomplishments in learning disability nursing include developing Internet forums and teaching higher education classes in the field.[1] In 2013, she and Robert Jenkins published Safeguarding Adults in Nursing Practice.[2] Northway has also held a Visiting Professorship at Ulster University's School of Nursing.[8]

Northway is a member of the editorial committee of the Journal of Intellectual Disabilities,[9] and was previously the journal's editor-in-chief from 2013 to 2019.[5] From 2003 to 2007, she was the editor of Learning Disability Practice.[8] In 2011, she became the chair of the Royal College of Nursing Research Society.[2]

Northway has also led the Learning Disability Ministerial Advisory Group within the Welsh Government.[1] She was a trustee of Tenovus Cancer Care from 2011 to 2015.[3]

Northway was elected a fellow of the Royal College of Nursing in 2003 – becoming the second learning disability nurse to be elected – "for her outstanding contributions to research in the field of learning disability nursing".[4][2] She became a Principal Fellow of the Higher Education Academy in 2015.[10][3] Northway was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire in the 2016 Birthday Honours for services to learning disability nursing.[11] Northway won Nursing Times' 2018 Chief Nursing Officers' Award for Lifetime Achievement.[12] Northway was elected a fellow of the Learned Society of Wales in 2021.[13]