NSW Health Pathology’s new Chief Pathologist A/Prof Matthew Watts says he’s honoured to be taking on the role and is aiming to bring staff together and build capacity, as the organisation heads into a period of significant technological change.

Matthew is a Clin­i­cal Micro­bi­ol­o­gist and Infec­tious Dis­eases Physi­cian who has worked in diverse envi­ron­ments from met­ro­pol­i­tan teach­ing hos­pi­tals to remote com­mu­ni­ty clinics.

He has been work­ing for NSW Health Pathol­o­gy as a senior staff spe­cial­ist at the Cen­tre for Infec­tious Dis­eases and Micro­bi­ol­o­gy, ICPMR West­mead and as the Local Pathol­o­gy Direc­tor for South­ern NSW.

He is also an Asso­ciate Pro­fes­sor at the West­ern Clin­i­cal School, Uni­ver­si­ty of Syd­ney and has a PhD in par­a­site epi­demi­ol­o­gy, diag­nos­tics and man­age­ment, with research pub­li­ca­tions in Micro­bi­ol­o­gy, Par­a­sitol­ogy and Pub­lic Health.

In 2023, he took on the role of an Asso­ciate Direc­tor of Clin­i­cal Oper­a­tions, where he enjoyed build­ing capac­i­ty in the sys­tem, for exam­ple by sup­port­ing Anatom­i­cal Pathol­o­gy ser­vices and con­ven­ing a col­lec­tive recruit­ment of senior med­ical officers.

With 25 years’ expe­ri­ence in clin­i­cal and lab­o­ra­to­ry prac­tice and lead­er­ship, Matthew is well posi­tioned to col­lab­o­rate with pathol­o­gists, clin­i­cians, and LHD stake­hold­ers in shap­ing the future needs of pathol­o­gy ser­vices across NSW.

Matthew said that he is hon­oured to take on the role of Chief Pathol­o­gist and sees it as an oppor­tu­ni­ty to work with col­leagues with a whole range of exper­tise in their var­i­ous roles, to help con­tin­ue excel­lent ser­vice pro­vi­sion for the peo­ple of New South Wales.

“It will be great to see some of the big­ger projects at NSW Health Pathol­o­gy progress towards imple­men­ta­tion, like Fusion, which will deliv­er our statewide lab­o­ra­to­ry infor­ma­tion sys­tem,” he said.

Fusion is about mod­ernising and stan­dar­d­is­ing NSW Health Pathol­o­gy’s tech­nolo­gies, process­es and work­flows, to help the organ­i­sa­tion work as a tru­ly con­nect­ed statewide service.

“It’s going to be a peri­od of sig­nif­i­cant change. My aim will be to col­lab­o­rate, lis­ten and let our team know their views are val­ued,” he said.

“There will be unfore­seen chal­lenges and I want peo­ple to know we are open to sug­ges­tions. With any project there will be the need to make con­tin­u­al improvements.

“If you’ve got a cul­ture where peo­ple feel val­ued, you will be get­ting a diver­si­ty of opin­ion and skills, which I think is essential.

Matthew stressed the impor­tance of med­ical lead­er­ship across the organ­i­sa­tion through­out this next stage of change.

“My role will be in sup­port­ing, engag­ing and advo­cat­ing with col­leagues to ensure we con­tin­ue to deliv­er high qual­i­ty clin­i­cal prac­tice and mak­ing sure our changes are informed by that best practice.”

In addi­tion to his work in Syd­ney, Matthew has been involved in super­vis­ing region­al lab­o­ra­to­ries across NSW, he has pre­vi­ous­ly worked in the North­ern Ter­ri­to­ry, and in Far North Queensland.

“I’ve worked with lots of dif­fer­ent peo­ple over the years and that has served me well and has shaped my per­spec­tive,” he said.

“I under­stand the chal­lenges and ben­e­fits of being in rur­al and region­al lab­o­ra­to­ries, all the way through to large teach­ing hospitals.

“NSW Health Pathol­o­gy is about pro­vid­ing the best health ser­vice we can to the com­mu­ni­ty, no mat­ter where peo­ple live.”

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