Michael Traynor is Trevor Clay Professor of Nursing Policy at Middlesex University, London, UK. He has been working as a researcher in healthcare and nursing policy since 1989. He worked in the research unit at the Royal College of Nursing (RCN) in London from 1991 to 1996 on a national research project. After this Michael co-inaugurated nursing's only policy research centre based at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine until 2004 when he was appointed to his current post. He has practised as a nurse and then health visitor in Cambridge and London. He is also Editor of the journal Health: An Interdisciplinary Journal for the social study of health, illness and medicine, and European Editor of Nursing Inquiry.