Nafiza Anwar is a Nurse Midwife, currently working as a Lead Midwife for Maternal Medicine. She is passionate about addressing health inequalities and has made efforts to tackle inequalities in maternity services, working towards improving maternity services for the staff working within and for those who use the services.

As part of this work, she sits on a national equity and equality steering group aiming to ensure equality of care for women and babies, and NHS staff.  She is also Director and Co-founder of the Association of South Asian Midwives, which focuses on improving maternity services for women and families from marginalised groups, also supporting midwives and other healthcare professionals from marginalised backgrounds.

Originally a nurse since 1989, Nafiza went on to train as a midwife qualifying in 2000. Her midwifery career has taken her through a wide range of roles including clinical practice, education, management, service improvement and project management. She completed her MSc in Public Health for Developing Countries and worked with the Department for International Development as a project manager for South Asia. This was in line with her passion to drive change in women’s health internationally.

She is a consultant volunteer with the RCM’s twinning project, working with the Bangladesh Midwifery Society, mentoring and coaching young midwifery leaders also providing them with support and advice. In her current role Nafiza is working to improve care for women with complex medical needs in Northeast London. 

Among Nafiza’s other high-profile roles she is a panel member for the MBRRACE-UK Perinatal Confidential Enquiry. This reports on maternity care outcomes for women to drive improvement in safety and care. She is also part of the EDI advisory group for Capital Midwife and a member of the East of England Task and Finish group focusing on ethnic minority staff development in the NHS.   

Nafiza recently received the RCM Fellowship for her work supporting South Asian women and midwives, and her efforts to tackle inequality in maternity care.