Our governors

We have two new partnership governors who have joined us.

• Sherin Akhtar – Chester and Cheshire West Local Authority
• Sally Holland – Cheshire East Local Authority

Peter Ashley-Mudie

Alongside being a Service User, Peter has a background in Social Working which involved helping Children and Families and holds an Advanced Diploma in Counselling and Psychotherapy. He is also a Lived Experience Connector for CWP along with being a Volunteer for the Trust for the past 10 years. Peter is also a Trustee of Wirral Churches’ ARK project which focusses on Service Delivery for the Homeless. Peter is keen to ensure the Service Users voice is heard in the continued development of CWP services in both community and hospital settings.

Beverly Greenwood

Beverly has experience of being a therapist for children with autism. She has personal experience of mental health and has been a service user in the past. Beverly decided to become a governor as to help advise doctors and specialist in the NHS of the services and provide from a patient and users point of view. Together we can help improve the service the offer to their patients. This way both the NHS and user can get the very best outcome.

As someone who has used many different departments of the NHS for myself and especially on the mental health side for my son. Beverly feels that she has a knowledgeable insight into how the service is provided and where improvements could be made. Beverly would like to use this knowledge to help other people who may need advice how to gain the best outcome for themselves or others they know.

Elaine Marsh

Elaine has 10 years’ experience as a Business Manager working within Cheshire and Wirral Partnership NHS Foundation Trust. After leaving CWP Elaine took up a post as a manager with the North West Borough Healthcare Trust for two years before joining the CCG as an Executive Support Officer from which she has recently retired. The roles in which Elaine has undertaken through her career have enabled her to understand the needs of the local community. Elaine’s connections with CWP remain through her husband who is a Service User, the experience from which enables her to bring balance and an independent view.

Rob Robertson

Previous experience as Non- Executive Director of a Primary care Trust and six years as a Public Governor for Cheshire and Wirral Partnership NHS Foundation Trust. In supporting and representing Service Users and Carers, I’ll work in my governor role to actively help children and adults . Two areas of interest are firstly, co-operation between local statutory services, e.g. Local Authority, Police services and NHS Services; secondly encouraging help for people, through peer to peer support, before they need a clinical diagnosis.

Elizabeth Stanley

Elizabeth is a parent carer to a young adult with severe learning difficulties and epilepsy.

Elizabeth has worked in a variety of settings, to include Special Educational Needs within secondary education and has more recently set up a social enterprise supporting families of children and young people with Special Educational Needs and Disabilities. Elizabeth is also a member of the National Institute for Clinical Excellence’s (NICE) Committee for children and young people with severe complex needs and integration services.

Elizabeth is also an active member of various panels within the Greater Manchester area.

 India Blakemore

India has strong experience with various elements of CWP services to include helping co-deliver personality disorder training with the complex needs service and utilising lived experience in the development of the personality disorder pathway. She is also an Expert by Experience for EmpowerED presenting to audiences about co-morbidity and teamwork - as well as a bank clinical support worker. India is passionate about helping others understand the importance of the lived experience voice and hopes to use her current psychology studies and knowledge of services, to positively influence the future of the Trust.

Kevin Bradburne

Based in Cheshire, Kevin is currently a Director within a charity that provides specialist support to voluntary organisations working with young people. Kevin’s interests have focused on non-formal education, mental health, infrastructure support and ensuring young people have their voices heard. Kevin has written numerous articles on a variety of educational topics and has presented lectures nationally with regards to young people who are at risk of dropping out of education employment or training.

Within his role as CWP Governor, Kevin is keen to combine his professional and personal experiences to represent and advocate for people in Cheshire West and Chester (CWAC) who use the services. As a passionate supporter of the NHS, Kevin wants to help the Trust get key messages out to the public and consult with the community to provide feedback, to the Trust, on services they receive.

Area: Cheshire West and Chester

 Helen Nellist

Helen’s experience includes working for high-profile companies in roles focused on corporate marketing. Currently, she is acting as Deputy Principal and CEO at South Cheshire College and West Cheshire College, managing Business Development and Apprenticeships, Marketing, PR and Communications and also International recruitment and provision. Her leadership and impact has been recognized by Ofsted in December 2016, as Helen led West Cheshire College to a successful merger with South Cheshire College, ensuring a strong financial foundation for the College.  Helen is also a member on the Trustee Board for Blacon High School, a Governor at Upton High School and a Director of the West Cheshire and North Wales Chamber. In her role as a CWP Governor, she aims to actively contribute to addressing mental health issues in the benefit of the service users.

Area: Cheshire West and Chester

Lisa Hulmes

Lisa has been a Clinical Psychologist for 22 years, 20 years of which has been with CWP.  During her career she has worked predominantly with older people (over the age of 65) and has worked in a variety of different settings.

She is currently the clinical lead for older adults in the step 4 primary care psychology service.

This is Lisa's first term as a Governor and she is looking forward to working with fellow staff, Governors and the public to enable the Trust to meet the inevitable challenges it faces going forwards with optimism and innovation.

Area: Clinical Psychology

 Thomas Owens

I have experience as a Support Worker and more recently as a Mental Health Nurse working on adult and CAMHS acute wards. My job currently is in the Community Mental Health Team.

I believe that many of my other working experiences allow me to offer great insight in my role as Governor. These experiences come from a wide background, to include employment within CWP, roles within the Cheshire Fire Service, volunteering in Ghana and working in a children’s home. Each one of these job roles allowed me to work with individuals from varied backgrounds and beliefs, enabling me to engage effectively, building a trusting relationship to offer person centered care.

Area: Nursing

Richard Banahene

Richard has over 20 years’ experience as a Mental Health Nurse within CWP. Alongside his role as Clinical Lead, Richard is a qualified Non-Medical Prescriber.

Richard is confident that his experience will enable him to represent the views of Nursing staff at Governor and Board meetings, respectively. Richard has a passion for ensuring that staff are able to reach their best potential and that effective service is delivered to the population which CWP serves.

Richard is most grateful to his colleagues for electing him as Governor. He believes that the role of Governor is an exciting opportunity and believes that happy staff provide excellent services. 

Area: Nursing

 Paul Jones

Paul is a Specialist Dietician, working within the Eating Disorders Service at CWP.

Paul has more than 10 years’ experience within the Dietetic field and has worked in a variety of settings.

Area: Therapies

Sean Boyle

Having experience of working with CWP in its various forms, for the past 25 years, Sean acquired valuable knowledge and understanding of the full circle regarding the organisation – previous and current state of play, medium and long term action points. Working in the front line of a crisis resolution home treatment team keeps him in touch with issues CWP staff is confronted with. Over the past five years, Sean’s role as a staff side RCN steward offered him the opportunity to negotiate amicable resolutions to problems which have arisen for staff in their workplace. He strongly believes that treating staff with fairness and respect is the key to providing quality care to service users.

Area: Staff side

Christopher French

Chris is currently Head of Technology, Infrastructure and Environment at The University of Liverpool, supporting research and teaching activities in the Faculty of Health and Life Sciences. He has worked in partnership with NHS Trusts, academics and patients to develop and deliver research and training to address clinical needs of local and national importance.

Prior to his current role, Chris has held other senior operational roles at the University in Life Sciences and Psychology.

Chris’s academic background was in Environmental Science. Previously, Chris was an Environment Consultant and Project Director for sustainability and environmental research programmes. Through his roles, he has developed skills in project and risk management, audit and using research and innovation to drive change – which he hopes will be useful to his CWP role.

Chris lives on the Wirral and is a longstanding Chair of Governors at a local school. Through this role, he is passionate about access to support for children with additional needs.

Area: University of Liverpool

Iain Stewart

Iain represents the Wirral NHS commissioner organisation (the statutory body that buys services from CWP for Wirral residents). He is a Wirral resident himself and has worked in the NHS since 1996, starting in Liverpool and moving to Wirral in 1999. His main area of commissioning responsibilities is for primary care services (mainly GP practices but soon to include community pharmacies, dentistry and ophthalmic services) and mental health, learning disabilities and autism services.

Before the NHS, Iain worked in financial services for 15 years covering operational functions, marketing and customer research. Iain holds a BSc honours degree in Technology Management (but he still switches off and on again when faced with an IT problem!).

In 2014, on behalf of the newly formed Wirral Clinical Commissioning Group, Iain secured Stonewall Champion status for the organisation to help improve organisational cultural beliefs and behaviours.

He believes commissioning of services should be limited to the “what” and “why” so care providers such as CWP can innovate the “how” through maximising the skills and expertise within their organisation.

As a new Cheshire & Merseyside Integrated Care System establishes from July 2022 he is excited to see CWP continuing to deliver high quality care for all of its patients and bringing its proven pedigree to influence improvements to the wider health and care system.

Area: Cheshire & Merseyside Integrated Care

Governors declaration of interests

Governors by constituency

Governors code of conduct

CWP constitution