After taking some well-deserved extended leave, Professor Roger Wilson officially retires from NSW Health Pathology on Friday 30 June. We will miss his exceptional service, professionalism, friendship and dedication to NSW Health Pathology.

Roger has been a valu­able mem­ber of NSW Health Pathol­o­gy right from its incep­tion and in the years pre­ced­ing this with­in the for­mer South East­ern Area Lab­o­ra­to­ry Ser­vices (SEALS) network.

As a found­ing mem­ber of the Strate­gic Lead­er­ship Team since NSW Health Pathol­o­gy was cre­at­ed over ten years ago, Roger served as the Exec­u­tive Direc­tor, Clin­i­cal, Qual­i­ty and Safe­ty, NSW State Pathol­o­gy Con­troller for Emer­gency Man­age­ment and as our inau­gur­al Chief Pathologist.

Roger’s exten­sive knowl­edge in the field of pathol­o­gy have played a piv­otal role in the suc­cess of our pub­lic pathol­o­gy ser­vices over decades and enhanced the stand­ing of NSW Health Pathol­o­gy in the broad­er pro­fes­sion and ensured a lead­er­ship role in pro­fes­sion­al forums and on nation­al com­mit­tees charged with set­ting poli­cies and standards.

Some of Roger’s key achieve­ments with NSWHP include:

• Imple­ment­ing an emer­gency man­age­ment struc­ture encom­pass­ing pre­ven­tion, pre­pared­ness, response and recov­ery to man­age and respond to many emer­gency inci­dents and the COVID-19 pandemic.
• Over­see­ing the build and oper­a­tional man­age­ment of the NSW Health Statewide Biobank, which con­tin­ues to sup­port research across the state through an auto­mat­ed stor­age facil­i­ty for biospec­i­mens includ­ing blood, tis­sue and DNA samples.
• Devel­op­ing our first Clin­i­cal Gov­er­nance Frame­work, which sup­ports all staff in mak­ing NSW Health Pathology’s care and ser­vices con­tin­u­ous­ly and mea­sur­ably bet­ter and safer for patients and com­mu­ni­ties and also a reward­ing work­place for staff.
• Lead­ing our research sup­port infra­struc­ture, that has devel­oped a research gov­er­nance and sup­port port­fo­lio. This con­tin­ues to mature in how we sup­port research activ­i­ties of our own experts and our partners.
• The estab­lish­ment of the NSW Health Pathology’s statewide Peri­na­tal Post­mortem Ser­vice, which helps hun­dreds of bereaved NSW fam­i­lies each year to receive time­ly and high­ly-spe­cialised sup­port, focused on sen­si­tive, com­pas­sion­ate care at this most dif­fi­cult time.
• Being instru­men­tal in the Qual­i­ty Use of Pathol­o­gy Pro­gram, which pro­vides grants for projects that improve the man­age­ment, deliv­ery or use of Medicare pathol­o­gy services.
• Pro­vid­ing out­stand­ing lead­er­ship for Pub­lic Pathol­o­gy Aus­tralia (for­mer­ly known as the Nation­al Coali­tion of Pub­lic Pathology).

Roger’s unwa­ver­ing ded­i­ca­tion to qual­i­ty and safe­ty and to uphold­ing the high­est stan­dards, cou­pled with his col­lab­o­ra­tive and respect­ful approach have con­tributed to a cul­ture of con­tin­ued improve­ment and excel­lence through­out NSW Health Pathol­o­gy. It has also had a sig­nif­i­cant influ­ence on improv­ing the qual­i­ty of patient care we deliver.

Roger – all of us at NSW Health Pathol­o­gy will miss your excep­tion­al ser­vice, pro­fes­sion­al­ism, friend­ship and ded­i­ca­tion to NSW Health Pathology.

We wish you a very hap­py and ful­fill­ing retirement.

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