Ex-nurse who’s now the most powerful woman in No 10
Champion of the NHS with a love of reading Machiavelli
SAMANTHA Jones is deeply proud of her roots on the NHS frontline.
In 2019 she posted a picture of herself as a student nurse from February 1989, writing: ‘Thirty years in health – as important now to me as it was then.’
Her husband, Professor Joe Harrison, is the chief executive of Milton Keynes University Hospital NHS Foundation Trust. They have 12-year-old twins. Miss Jones has spoken of how her son Leo battled for life after contracting meningitis at seven weeks old but later recovered.
She began her NHS career as a nurse at Great Ormond Street Hospital but quickly realised life on the wards was not for her. While still a trainee, she went to see the chief nurse at the London children’s hospital and declared she wanted to go into management.
She later recalled: ‘I said, “I don’t know why I want to be a manager, but I’ve got four brothers. I’m too stroppy. I have to stand by my beds while the consultant does his ward round and I’m not allowed to speak until I’m spoken to – and I’m not having any of that”.’
The chief nurse supported Miss Jones’s ambitions, tellranks. ing her to finish her training and then meeting her regularly to discuss her plans.
Her drive and determination stayed with her as she moved rapidly through the When she was on the Health Service’s two-year graduate management training scheme, she wrote to then NHS chief executive Sir Alan Langlands and asked to shadow him for a week.
She later told the Health Service Journal: ‘No one had told me I could, no one had told me I couldn’t, and so I did it.
‘I spent a week with him and for half an hour after every meeting he said “What do you think, Sam? Tell me what your view is”.’
The Health Service Journal named her NHS chief executive of the year in 2014.
She has admitted to unusual tastes. Her favourite books include Machiavelli’s The Prince, a 16th-century guide to ruthlessly obtaining and maintaining political power, and Michael Rosen’s classic children’s tale We’re Going On A Bear Hunt.
Miss Jones has also told how her favourite food is Japanese and her dream dinner party guests would include Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, David Walliams and Nelson Mandela.
‘I’m stroppy – I’ve got four brothers’