Lara Paya-Morant
London
Summary
Senior Maternity Matron with broad experience in workforce planning, safe staffing and complex pathway coordination, alongside a strong background in fetal medicine, maternity theatres and enhanced care. Currently leads rota planning, staffing cover and day-to-day operational coordination for 150+ staff, working closely with clinical, administrative and operational teams to support patient flow, elective Caesarean pathways and safe, efficient service delivery.
Overview
5
5
Languages
1
1
Certification
14
14
years of professional experience
Work History
Matron - Hospital Birth Centre, Maternity Theatres & Enhanced Maternity Care Unit
Guy's and St Thomas' NHS Foundation Trust
05.2023 - Current
- Managed workforce and rota planning for 150+ staff across 24/7 service, proactively identifying gaps to minimise last-minute staffing pressures and reliance on temporary cover.
- Directly manage the Band 7 Midwifery Practice Leaders responsible for the Hospital Birth Centre, Enhanced Maternity Care Unit and Maternity Theatres, as well as the Fetal Monitoring team. This includes recruitment, PDRs, performance, sickness management, coaching and staff development.
- Coordinated day-to-day service operations, collaborating with midwives, obstetricians, anaesthetists, neonatologists, and administrative colleagues to resolve staffing, capacity, scheduling, and patient-flow issues.
- Oversee complex maternity pathways, including women requiring highly specialised multidisciplinary care, and support elective Caesarean/IOL planning through weekly coordination meetings, list management and management of operational pressures.
- Oversaw budget, workforce establishment and resource management, partnering with finance and other teams to review expenditure and approve equipment and supply needs across theatres and clinical areas.
- Handled formal and informal patient concerns and complaints, engaging directly with women and families to understand issues, de-escalate situations, and agree on effective resolutions.
- Lead governance and service-improvement work including incident review, audit, quality rounds, ward accreditation, SOPs and action plans, making sure actions have clear owners, timescales and follow-up.
Senior Safe Staffing Lead- NHS Band 8a
Lewisham and Greenwich NHS Trust
03.2021 - 05.2023
- Balanced patient safety, operational demand and financial constraints across multiple services while collaborating across professional and organisational boundaries to ensure safe staffing.
- Led nursing and midwifery safe staffing across Lewisham Hospital and Queen Elizabeth Hospital, regularly collaborating with diverse services to address varying workforce pressures.
- Reviewed establishments, vacancies, skill mix and staffing gaps to proactively identify risks using workforce data and dashboards, enhancing planning and deployment.
- Worked closely with senior nursing, midwifery, workforce and operational teams to resolve staffing issues and support safe, sustainable workforce decisions.
Elective Pathways Matron
Chelsea and Westminster Hospital NHS Foundation Trust
08.2019 - 03.2021
- Led the day-to-day operational management of elective maternity pathways, coordinating patient scheduling, appointment capacity, theatre utilisation, staffing and clinician availability to keep services running efficiently.
- Worked closely with midwives, obstetricians, anaesthetists, theatre teams, administrative staff and operational colleagues to resolve booking, capacity and pathway issues and ensure patients moved through the service without unnecessary delay.
- Adjusted planned activity in response to theatre or clinical pressures, communicating directly with patients to explain changes, de-escalate concerns, and manage expectations while identifying suitable alternatives.
- Managed budget, workforce establishment, recruitment, governance and service improvement, using operational data and service feedback to identify issues and enhance pathway performance.
- Facilitated pathway redesign and collaborated across organisational boundaries to enhance coordination, patient flow, and utilisation of available capacity.
Fetal Medicine Unit Lead / Senior Midwifery Leadership Roles
University College London Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust
05.2012 - 07.2019
- Led the day-to-day operation of a tertiary Fetal Medicine Unit, coordinating complex referrals, specialist appointments, investigations, multidisciplinary input and follow-up.
- Coordinated complex, time-critical care pathways with fetal medicine consultants, obstetricians, neonatologists, sonographers, specialist midwives and external services.
- Introduced quality-improvement initiatives to enhance referral systems, tracking and continuity of care, minimising risk of patients being lost between services.
- Worked closely with administrative and reception teams to manage referral flow, scheduling, patient communication and clinic priorities, acting as an operational link between clinical and non-clinical teams.
- Also managed postnatal services and provided senior cover across antenatal and private maternity services, gaining extensive experience in discharge planning and onward referral to community, primary care and specialist services.
- Managed senior rota and workforce responsibilities across fetal medicine and maternity services, collaborating with partner hospitals and teams.
- NHS Band 7
Education
BSc (Hons) - Midwifery
City University London
01-2014
University Diploma - Nursing
CEU Cardenal Herrera University
Valencia01-2009
Skills
Digital & IT Skills Operational & Management Skills
- Complex rota and workforce planning
- Staff recruitment and development
- Budget management
- Patient coordination
- Pathway coordination
- Clinical governance and incident review
- Quality audit and accreditation
- Service improvement
- Data analysis and reporting
- Digital systems management
- Strong digital and IT skills, with regular use of Epic, BadgerNet, ViewPoint, MOSOS, HealthRoster, RADAR, Trac, Excel, PowerPoint, Word, Outlook, Microsoft Teams, Zoom and operational dashboards
- Information governance
Certification
NHS People Manager Programme - Silver, GSST Matron Leadership Development Programme, NHS Elect Quality Improvement and Building High Performing Teams, Systems Thinking, Human Factors, Risk and Safety Culture, Quality Improvement methodology
Languages
English
Proficient
C2
Spanish
Proficient
C2
Italian
Advanced
C1
Catalan
Advanced
C1
French
Elementary
A2
Accomplishments
- Senior rota and workforce responsibility since 2017, with current responsibility for planning and coordinating a workforce of 150+ staff across three high-acuity maternity services. Proactive forward planning and early identification of gaps have reduced last-minute staffing escalation and reliance on temporary cover.
- Participated in 50+ recruitment interviews across roles from Healthcare and Maternity Care Assistants to Band 7 leadership posts, and contributed to stakeholder panels for NHS Band 8a senior management appointments.
- More than six years of Matron-level responsibility for budgets, workforce establishment and financial oversight, including review and approval of equipment and supply requirements across theatres, clinics and procedure areas.
- Extensive experience managing complex referrals, appointment capacity, scheduling and patient flow across tertiary fetal medicine, elective maternity and high-acuity services, including quality-improvement work to strengthen tracking and continuity of care.
- Experienced in managing formal and informal complaints, direct patient and family contact, de-escalation, service recovery and the use of patient/staff feedback, audits and incident themes to drive practical service improvement.
Leadership, Governance and Service Improvement
- Preparation for and participation in CQC inspections, ward accreditation, quality rounds and audit programmes across several NHS organisations.
- Development, review and implementation of clinical and operational guidelines, SOPs and service procedures.
- Experienced in translating incidents, complaints, audits and patient/staff feedback into structured action plans with SMART objectives, named owners, timescales and follow-up.
- Strong background in staff training, coaching, competency development, induction, performance management and leadership development.
Interests
- Nature and the outdoors, reading, holistic wellbeing and nutrition
Timeline
Matron - Hospital Birth Centre, Maternity Theatres & Enhanced Maternity Care Unit
Guy's and St Thomas' NHS Foundation Trust
05.2023 - Current
Senior Safe Staffing Lead- NHS Band 8a
Lewisham and Greenwich NHS Trust
03.2021 - 05.2023
Elective Pathways Matron
Chelsea and Westminster Hospital NHS Foundation Trust
08.2019 - 03.2021
Fetal Medicine Unit Lead / Senior Midwifery Leadership Roles
University College London Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust
05.2012 - 07.2019
BSc (Hons) - Midwifery
City University London
University Diploma - Nursing
CEU Cardenal Herrera University