Clendon, Dr Jill

Jocelyn Peach
Aug 4, 2024
3 min read

Updated: Aug 3

Regional Clinical Director, Primary and Community Care, Service Commissioning Te Waipounamu. Chair of Nurse Executives Aotearoa

Registered Nurse, Bachelor of Arts in Political Studies, Masters of Philosophy Nursing , PhD Nursing from Massey University, PG Dip Professional Supervision, Dip Career Guidance, Cert. Adult Teaching

Jill Clendon initially enrolled in a Bachelor of Arts majoring in Political Science and Scandinavian Studies at the University of Auckland. At university, she joined the ski club and spent four New Zealand summers working as a ski patroller in Lake Tahoe. Working at a summer camp for girls she identified she enjoyed working with the camp nurse and decided to move back to New Zealand to study nursing. She completed her Diploma of Comprehensive Nursing at Waikato Polytechnic; registering February 1994.

After graduating, she returned to the States, working as a paediatric nurse in Colorado and Alaska before moving back to New Zealand to work in paediatrics at Starship Hospital in Auckland. She enrolled in a Masters of Philosophy (Nursing), shortly afterward moving to work in the community as a public health nurse.

While working as a public health nurse in the community she gave birth to her first child on the last day of collecting data for her thesis. After she finished her thesis, she taught in Massey University’s postgraduate nursing programme for eight years. She had her second child and completed her PhD. She has taught at both undergraduate and post graduate levels with a specific interest in nursing history, primary health care and child and family health.

From July 2008 to May 2010 Jill worked at Nelson Marlborough Institute of Technology in the Bachelor of Nursing programme as a Senior Academic - lecturing and curriculum development

From May 2010 she started work as Nursing Policy Advisor and Researcher for the New Zealand Nurses Organisation. In 2017, Jill was appointed as Chief Advisor in the Office of the Chief Nursing Officer at the Ministry of Health and started commuting to Wellington from her home in Nelson weekly. While at the Ministry, she spent time as Acting Chief Nursing Officer, working closely then Director General of Health Dr Ashley Bloomfield.

More recently Jill has worked in the position of Associate Director of Nursing and Operations Manager for Ambulatory Care at Nelson Marlborough District Health Board Te Whatu Ora, a mix of leadership and operational management, responsible for district nursing and public health nursing. In early 2024, Jill accepted an offer to work as Regional Clinical Director, Primary and Community Care for the Health New Zealand Commissioning team across Te Waipounamu. She now combines that with contract work including work with the Nursing Council and running her own professional supervision practice.

Jill has also been an active volunteer, contributing her time over the years to activities such as running a volunteer after-hours nurse-led clinic in Nelson, past chairperson of the Victory Community Health Centre Board, a local community-led health initiative, past president of the Nelson Orienteering Club, and currently as co-chair of Nurse Executives Aotearoa.

She also held previous appointments as adjunct professor at Victoria University in the Graduate School of Nursing, Midwifery and Health, member of the Primary and Community Advisory Board to Waitakere Health Board, and member of the Ministerial Advisory Group reviewing Care Capacity Demand Management. She has co-authored four editions of the text book Community health and wellness: primary health care in practice and has published over 60 peer-reviewed and other journal articles. Jill's research has examined the efficacy of community-based nurse-led clinics, the historical and contemporary context of community-based well-child care in New Zealand, nursing workforce issues, models of care, cultural history, primary health care and nursing science.

Jill is a member of the College of Nurses (Aotearoa). She is also a qualified ski instructor and enjoys her winter weekends teaching skiing at her local ski field. When not skiing, she enjoys bikepacking, mountainbiking, orienteering and hiking with her family. In 2022-23, Jill and her husband took a year off work and bikepacked 5,000km across North America, circumnavigated Samoa twice and rode the length of Aotearoa.