Professor John Unsworth is the Interim Deputy Faculty Pro Vice Chancellor at Northumbria University. He has a background in community nursing practice, education, management and research.
Prior to his current post John has worked as the Head of Learning and Teaching, University of Sunderland, Head of Academic Development at the Higher Education Academy and as Director of Nursing Programmes at Northumbria University. He is an experienced NHS manager having been a Nurse Director in a rural Care Trust in Northern England prior to taking up posts in Higher Education. He has experience of workforce redesign in relation to developing the community nurses’ role around admission avoidance. John is also an International Council of Nurses (ICN) Global Nursing Leadership Scholar 2020.
John has extensive experience of developing nursing, medical and higher education internationally having worked to develop teachers and practice in China, Thailand, Vietnam, Ghana, Bahrain, Hungary, Ukraine and Grenada (West Indies).
John trained as a nurse in Sunderland and worked in a variety of acute ward settings before moving into district nursing. He completed his specialist practitioner qualification in district nursing in 1997 and he has worked in a variety of roles including district nursing, as a specialist nurse and nurse consultant. He has a PhD from Robert Gordon University which specifically examined the influence of health care organisations on innovation and development. John is an alumni of the QNI Innovation and Creative Practice Awards and is a Queen’s Nurse. John was awarded an OBE for services to community nursing and community nurse education in the Queen’s Birthday Honours in 2022.
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