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Yvonne Coghill has announced her resignation as RCN deputy president.
Nursing Management. 27, 6, 7-7. doi: 10.7748/nm.27.6.7.s7
Published: 26 November 2020
In a statement, Ms Coghill said the decision to resign was a difficult one: ‘It was a huge honour to have been elected by the membership to represent you as your deputy president and it is with great sadness that I step down from the role two months before my term comes to an end. This has been a difficult decision for me, but one I believe I have had no choice but to make following events during the summer.’
Ms Coghill’s resignation came days after Tracey Budding was announced as the new deputy president, and at a tumultuous time for the RCN with a series of resignations in the college’s leadership in the past few months.
There has also been a dispute over the disqualifications of incumbent president Dame Anne Marie Rafferty and Stuart McKenzie from the presidential race for breaching RCN election rules relating to use of RCN resources.
The election process was suspended and a meeting was due to be held on 27 November, as Nursing Management went to press, to discuss the next steps. Ms Coghill was one of the candidates in the suspended RCN presidential election but has told RCNi she is not now planning to stand for the position.
Ms Coghill’s term as deputy president was due to end on 1 January 2021, when Ms Budding will take over the role. Ms Budding has an NHS career that goes back almost 40 years and works at Birmingham Women’s Hospital as a specialist nurse in gynaecology, having previously been a neonatal intensive care sister there.
