Professor of Nursing Policy and former Dean in the Florence Nightingale Faculty of Nursing, Midwifery and Palliative Care, Anne Marie is also the current President of the Royal College of Nursing. Passionate about the role of arts in health and widening access to higher education, she was Co-Director of the Wellcome Centre for humanities and health and Director of Academic Outreach at King’s. She is currently Co-Director of the Health and Social Care Workforce Policy Research Unit at King's.

In 2008, she was seconded to the Department of Health to work with Lord Ara Darzi and Professor Dame Christine Beasley on the Next Stage Review of the NHS and was awarded a CBE for services to healthcare. She served on the Prime Minister’s Commission on the Future of Nursing and Midwifery 2009-10 and has been recipient of various awards including the Nursing Times Leadership Award in 2014 and Health Services Journal Top 100 Clinical Leaders Award in 2015 and was inducted onto the Sigma Theta Tau International Hall of Fame in 2016. She was nominated one of the 70 most influential nurses in the 70 years of the NHS in 2018.

She holds fellowships from the Royal College of Nursing and the American Academy of Nursing and was elected a Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences in 2019 and Member of the Academia Europaea in 2020. She co-lead a Student Commission on the Future of the NHS supported by NHS England and was a member of the Parliamentary Review of Health and Social Care in Wales which reported in 2018.

The first nurse to gain a doctorate at Oxford University (Modern History), Professor Rafferty has worked clinically in Edinburgh, Nottingham and Oxford, combining and innovating both clinical and academic roles.

Commenting on the news, Professor Rafferty said: 'I am greatly humbled and thrilled by this honour. It reflects the talents and support of many extraordinary colleagues with whom I have had the privilege of working and I am grateful to all of them for their unstinting contributions over the years’