Mrs Paula Libberton
Head of Department

Paula is Head of Department for Nursing, Midwifery and Heath in the School of Health Sciences at the University of Southampton.
Paula registered as a mental health nurse in 1996, and moved into higher education in 2002, after gaining experience in a wide variety of clinical mental health settings in the UK. Paula holds a Community Psychiatric Nursing qualification and is a registered Nurse Lecturer. Paula was appointed as Sub-campus Lead in 2006, Head of Practice Learning in 2012 and Mental Health Group Manager in 2016. In 2019 Paula was appointed Director of Programmes for the Department and from 2020 focussed on Nursing and Midwifery.
Paula is the Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) Official Correspondent for the University acting as the main point of contact for NMC approved programmes. Paula is responsible for reporting any concerns about the student learning environment to the NMC. Paula is accountable to the NMC for the quality assurance of Nursing and Midwifery programmes.
Paula’s main focus is leading the education of health professionals, although she has made some contribution to research. Paula worked as a Research Nurse, Practice Development Nurse and undertook some of her own research. Paula is committed to ensuring excellence in education delivery, whilst maintaining a focus on wellbeing and compassion for staff, students and users of health services.