Nafiza Anwar

Director and Co-Founder

Maternity Project Manager Public Health and Postnatal NHS North East London ICB/LMNS

Nafiza is a Nurse Midwife with over 38 years' experience across a wide range of health-related and women's health issues. She qualified as a Nurse in 1989 and went on to complete her midwifery in 2002 from City University London. She has worked in various roles from a clinician, educationalist, manager, service improvement and project management. She has developed a strong passion for inequalities in health especially in maternity services and is driven to influence and initiate change in the healthcare systems not just in the UK but in the developing world too. In pursuit of her passion, she completed a Public Health MSc, secured a scholarship with DFID, and worked as a project manager for Women’s health projects in South Asia. 

Her passion for inequalities led to her Co Founding the Association of South Asian Midwives. The aim of which is to set about improving maternity services for women and families who use the service as well as those providing the service and focusing on the barriers that are faced by these communities from the global majority. 

Nafiza is also a panel member for MBRRACE-UK perinatal confidential enquiry and is a member of the Capital Midwife EDI Advisory group. She is also part of the Men and Diversity in Midwifery: National Equity and Equality Steering Group with the aim to provide equity for women and babies in maternity within the NHS and embed equality for all staff.  She has been a consultant volunteer with the Bangladesh RCM Twinning project over the last few years providing mentorship support to the young midwifery leaders as well as providing support to the Bangladesh Midwifery Society. She is a member of the Chief Nursing Officer and Chief Midwifery Officer BAME Strategic Advisory Group. 

Her organisation ASAM secured funding from Florence Nightingale foundation to develop a welcome programme for internationally recruited midwives to support them on their NHS journey. 

In her previous NHS role as Lead Maternal Medicine midwife, for NEL she was integral in developing the Maternal Medicine service across Northeast London. 

She was awarded the RCM Fellowship in 2022 and has recently secured the prestigious Florence Nightingale Leadership Scholarship. Nafiza was also invited by HRH King Charles to attend a celebration event at Buckingham palace to acknowledge nurses and midwives working in UK as part of his 75th birthday celebrations on Nov 14th 2023.