What do you call a lady in charge of a hospitals nursing staff?

a doctor or the matron

Nonsense!!! Doctors are never in charge of nurses in a hospital. Nurses and Doctors are two completely separate teams that run paralell to each other and also work with each other. Doctors enter the ward as visiting staff, there is always a ward manager in charge of a ward and he/she is a Band 7 registered nurse. In Most hospitals a nurse manager will manage all of the nurses within the hospital.

TV shows such as Holby and Casualty always show a doctor telling a nurse to go for their tea break etc and giving them rows. THis would never happen in real life and if a doctor attempted to do this to a nurse, there would be sparks flying!!

In the US, the Director of Nurses (or Chief Nursing Officer or similar designation) heads the Nursing Department. She is responsible for the overall functioning of the department and answers to the Chief Executive Officer (who may or may not be a doctor, but who is responsible for the entire hospital.) She does not answer to the Chief Medical Officer (who is responsible for the medical staff). Hospitals may variously have shift nursing supervisors (sometimes called house supervisors) who oversee the day to day running of units on a shift basis and coordinate between them, as well unit nursing supervisors (sometimes called clinical supervisors, used to be called head nurses), who frequently have 24 hour responsibility for their unit. Charge nurses take on some of the oversight functions on a shift basis in individual units (these used to be called assistant head nurses) doing things like patient assignments, phone calls, trouble shooting and generally supporting the bedside nurses. A nurse may be permanently a charge nurse, or the role may shift between team members on a daily or other basis. All of these people are RNs (Registered Nurse), some with advanced practice licenses and/or specialty certifications. Physicians are not in charge of nurses. Haven't been for at least the 35 years I've been in. Good thing, too. They really don't know a thing about nursing. Not even when we take breaks.