Nursing Expert Witness Ms Ruth Ostrovskis-Wilkes Thoracic & Trauma Nurse Specialist

Ruth accepts instructions from claimant and defendant law firms in personal injury and clinical negligence matters. Her scope concerns thoracic surgery and chest trauma nursing.

Her clinical governance experience includes investigating concerns about care, reviewing records and preparing reports. She draws on professional standards, clinical guidelines and national benchmarking when reviewing nursing practice.

Ruth Ostrovskis-Wilkes is a nurse expert witness at McCollum Consultants, specialising in thoracic surgery and chest trauma nursing. She accepts instructions from claimant and defendant solicitors in clinical negligence and personal injury matters within her expertise.

Ruth works as Senior Sister and Specialist Thoracic Advanced Clinical Practitioner at Sheffield Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust. Her practice focuses on adults undergoing thoracic surgery and patients with chest injuries, including those requiring intrapleural drains and complex discharge support.

She qualified as a Registered General Nurse at King’s College Hospital in 1985. After gaining experience in emergency and intensive care nursing, she specialised in cardiothoracic surgery. She subsequently held senior ward leadership positions in cardiac and thoracic services in the UK and Australia.

Ruth returned to Sheffield’s Thoracic Surgery and Chest Trauma Unit in 2004. She has held her combined Senior Sister and Specialist Thoracic Advanced Clinical Practitioner role since 2012.

She completed an MSc in Healthcare Education in 2011 and an MSc in Advanced Clinical Practice in 2012 at Sheffield Hallam University. She is also a registered nurse teacher and non-medical prescriber.

Her additional training includes counselling, bereavement counselling, further and adult education teaching, cardiac care and healthcare leadership.

Ruth combines advanced clinical practice with responsibility for nursing standards, clinical governance and service development. Her work includes investigating complaints and incidents, reviewing clinical records, preparing reports and identifying improvements in care.

She has developed enhanced recovery pathways for thoracic surgery and chest trauma. She also established an autonomous Thoracic ACP clinic supporting patients discharged with complex needs. Her work includes advising colleagues in other UK units on guidelines and practice development.

Ruth’s clinical interests include nursing care following thoracic surgery and chest trauma, chest wall injuries and intrapleural drain care. She also focuses on enhanced recovery, discharge planning and follow-up for patients with complex needs.

Her wider interests include advanced nursing practice, multidisciplinary working, service innovation and patient safety. She uses research, education and clinical review to strengthen nursing standards and reduce clinical risk.

Ruth has extensive experience leading clinical and ancillary teams and coordinating multidisciplinary care. Her responsibilities include recruitment, appraisal, staff development, workforce planning, performance management and resource allocation.

She manages patient flow across elective thoracic surgery and emergency admissions. This involves working with site teams on staffing, capacity and infection prevention requirements.

Her clinical governance work includes incident investigations, complaints responses, monitoring care quality and implementing changes in practice. She has also managed complex safeguarding concerns and contributed to services supporting patients with tracheostomies and laryngectomies.

Ruth promotes compassionate leadership, professional accountability and a supportive team culture.

Ruth’s research and service evaluation interests include enhanced recovery, thoracic ACP-led follow-up and care following chest trauma. She has experience in clinical audit and evaluating changes to services.

She has also contributed as an invited expert to a Delphi study developing guidance on care following chest trauma.

Ruth has contributed to conference work on an independent advanced nurse practitioner clinic supporting early discharge after thoracic surgery. Conference programmes document this work at the International Joint Meeting on Thoracic Surgery in 2018 and the European Society of Thoracic Surgeons meeting in 2019.

Ruth is a registered nurse teacher who delivers education in clinical and educational settings. She supports individual practitioners and multidisciplinary teams.

She developed and implemented a Trust-wide standardised training package for nurses caring for patients with intrapleural drains. She also teaches chest wall trauma management on the Trust’s trauma course.

As a member of the Trust’s Human Factors training faculty, she teaches approaches to reducing risk and improving patient safety. Her teaching also addresses learning from incidents and strengthening team culture.

Ruth has presented at national and international conferences, including the European Society of Thoracic Surgeons meeting in 2019. Her conference experience also includes ERAS UK, the International Joint Meeting on Thoracic Surgery and the International Chest Wall Injury Society Meeting.