NATIONAL VOICES - Key Persons
Job Titles:
- Senior Policy Advisor at Macmillan
Clare Woodford, Senior Policy Advisor at Macmillan, highlights the findings of a new report showing that personalised, integrated care is essential for people with long-term health conditions, particularly during the pandemic, and as we plan our way out of it.
Clare has spent her career working in healthcare policy and volunteering for UK and global charities, including Carers UK and HelpAge International.
She is passionately committed to increasing service user co-production, and eradicating inequalities in health and care services. She is currently Senior Policy Advisor at Macmillan Cancer Support where she leads on person-centred care, integration and system working.
Eamonn works at Thomas Pocklington Trust, a leading advocate of equality for blind and partially sighted people and primarily staffed by people who are blind or partially sighted.
With a background in community development and social enterprise, Eamonn is now dedicated to tackling inequities in health and care services across the UK. He believes that putting lived experience at the heart of the design and delivery of those services is vital to success.
Esther is passionate about the provision of inspiring, inclusive, person-centred health & social care services designed to ensure that individuals are empowered to make decisions in relation to their care and support.
Ezra is the wellbeing and leadership development manager at the Turning Point Drugs, Alcohol and Wellbeing Service (DAWS).
He has over 16 years of experience in helping, supporting and empowering disadvantaged individuals through various mediums, both within custodial and community settings. He has lots of experience in influencing culture change and improving wellbeing. Over the last three years, he has facilitated over eighty training workshops and webinars for various teams and organisations.
Job Titles:
- Partnership, Development and Membership Officer
Grace is Partnership, Development and Membership Officer at National Voices, and joined the team in 2023.
She is an International Relations graduate from Cardiff university with experience in IT and mental health issues. She is passionate about diversity and inclusion across the health sector. She aims to engage with all stakeholders, with a view to achieving improved health and care outcomes.
Job Titles:
- Chief Delivery Officer
- Deputy Chief of Staff
Harry is the deputy chief of staff for the Chief Delivery Officer at NHS England.
Harry has worked in NHS England for the past few years, including on the COVID-19 vaccination programme and also within population health management policy. Prior to that, Harry spent six years as a health and care policy researcher at Ipsos MORI and the King's Fund. He has published several reports about population health, data and digital health and care. He works closely with NHS and local authority organisations to improve their use of data for population health purposes. Harry has been an advisor to numerous health groups in the past, and he has been a trustee for National Voices since 2020.
Helen has been Finance Director at the National Rheumatoid Arthritis Society since 2018 where she works to support, educate and campaign for all those living with complex auto-immune conditions.
Helen has been Director of Strategy and Operations at the Nuffield Trust since June 2018.
She has 25 years' experience in NHS roles, including senior roles in national bodies, as well as in both commissioner and provider organisations. A finance professional by background, Helen's past roles include Director of Strategy and Organisational Development in a mental health trust; PCT Chief Executive; Chief of Staff at Monitor; and most recently Director of Corporate Affairs at NHS Improvement.
Helen was appointed as the Chair of National Voices in December 2020, a role that enables her to continue her work supporting organisations to look at policies and practice through a truly person-centred lens, ensuring that people who use services are never seen as less important than those who deliver them.
Jacob joined in May 2023 as Chief Executive of National Voices.
He is a committed advocate for working with people accessing health and care services and the wider public to help improve the accessibility and quality of the care they receive. He loves to combine deep qualitative insights with quantitative data to challenge traditional thinking on how to tackle policy challenges. Prior to working for National Voices, Jacob spent almost 10 years helping to build the Healthwatch network. In this time, he led successful nationwide policy influencing campaigns on a huge variety of topics, from maternal mental health services to access to NHS dentistry. He has also worked in local Government and for the British Library. Outside of work he can often be found with a power tool in hand, offering his DIY services to friends around South London.
Job Titles:
- Point of Care Foundation As CEO
Jessie joined the Point of Care Foundation as CEO in December 2023.
She has over 25 years' senior experience in health and care systems and infrastructures with a focus on strategy, leadership, social innovation, people, power and health.
Jessie's previous roles have focused on how to promote understanding of the rich and complex relationships between people who use services, the wider public, those that work in health and care and the systems that deliver it. She has worked directly supporting people experiencing care, in service improvement and transformation, research, education and regulation.
New Trustee Kalu "Kaz" Obuka, tells us what motivated him to apply to become a National Voices Trustee.
Kalu is a lead for stakeholder engagement in the UK civil service.
His previous roles have spanned the NHS, as well as charity and private sector organisations in the US, UK, India, and Japan.
A golden thread throughout his career has been facilitating relationships between groups with different views and cultures, and promoting an understanding of the human experiences of delivering and receiving services.
He seeks to amplify the voices of people who are excluded or easily ignored. His commitment is driven by his Lived Experience as a young carer for his mother. Although her health has since improved, Kalu and his siblings still support her to navigate a health and care system that isn't always able to listen to her or meet her needs.
Job Titles:
- Research and Insight Manager
Louis joined as Research and Insight Manager in December 2023.
For the last 6 years Louis has been a social researcher, specialising in delivering projects in the health and social care space. Prior to joining the National Voices team, Louis worked at IFF Research and Traverse. A proficient research manager, he has experience in deploying a variety of qualitative and quantitative research methodologies across the entire project life cycle from design, delivery through to dissemination. At National Voices, Louis is responsible for leading on all research and insight projects.
Job Titles:
- Policy and External Affairs Officer
In the role of Policy and External Affairs Officer, Lucy supports the work across three key areas in National Voices; policy, communications and membership.
Lucy's role is integral to our work advocating for equitable, person-centred health and care services, ensuring this work is authentically developed with our members, and effectively communicated to our wider network. Prior to joining National Voices, Lucy completed her BA in Visual Communication, before going on to study Public Health for her MSc. Lucy also has previous experience volunteering for long-term condition organisations, in addition to a keen interest in tackling both gender and accessibility inequities, and improving the use of data, across healthcare.
Job Titles:
- Director of Finance and Operations
Matthew is an experienced finance leader specialising in niche organisations.
He has worked in the charity & membership organisation sector for the last 6 years, initially working with a membership driven organisation and more recently as Finance Director for a national community transport organisation, looking after Finance, HR & Head Office Support functions. At National Voices, Matthew oversees many of the enablers of our work, such as finance and operations.
Meera is a Dental Advisor at Health Education England, and Lived Experience Associate at Bridges Self Management.
She also works independently as a healthcare educator as well as lived-experience patient expert. She guest lectures on the Masters module in Cancer Care at Cardiff University, having lived with cancer for over ten years. Prior to this, Meera had over a decade of experience working as an NHS Dentist, providing care for patients with special needs. Meera is currently in her final year of the MSc in Healthcare Professions Education at UCL. She is passionate about co-production, holistic care of the patient and family, and combines her skills as clinician, educator and expert patient to improve healthcare delivery.
Noha is the Interim CEO of Arthritis Action.
She has over 18 years' experience in fundraising, communications, and public relations in a variety of industries, and has focused on the health and charity sectors for the past 12 years. She previously worked for a former UK health minister as part of the World Innovation Summit for Health (WISH), promoting healthcare policies serving the UK population and the rest of the globe. Noha is passionate about translating complex health messages to the public, and is keen to further National Voices' agenda of promoting person-centred care nationwide. She is also a Board member of the Chartered Institute of Public Relations (CIPR).
Pavi is Senior Policy Advisor at National Voices.
Pavi has worked at National Voices since September 2021, initially as Policy and Engagement Officer before becoming Senior Policy Advisor. She works across the breadth of policy and external affairs projects at National Voices, with a special interest in primary care and digital exclusion. In all her work, Pavi is committed to tackling health inequalities to make sure health and care services are accessible and inclusive for all. She is passionate about promoting equality, diversity, and inclusion. She has co-led on work tackling racial inequalities in the charity sector by driving improvements in internal organisational culture and practices, and in external influencing work (including working with people lived experience). Prior to joining National Voices, Pavi completed a Master's degree in Global Health and Social Justice and has previously worked in community pharmacy and an international pharmaceutical group.
Job Titles:
- Certified Professional Co - Active Coach
- Learning and Leadership Development Coach
Rachel Matthews introduces our Patient Partners programme.
Rachel is a Certified Professional Co-Active Coach who co-designs and delivers learning development products for effective collaboration and partnership between people who bring different experiences of health and social care.
She co-leads a talented community of Lived Experience Partners with Keymn Whervin. Rachel is an experienced health professional with clinical, research, quality improvement and leadership experience. Rachel is an alumna of the King's Fund Top Manager Programme and the NIHR Leadership Programme.
Rosie is Communications Manager at National Voices.
Rosie ensures that National Voices' and our members' priorities and concerns, are communicated clearly and effectively to key stakeholders, the media and the public by devising communications strategies and plans across all of our work and managing media relations. Rosie oversees and leads on National Voices' communications channels across our website, social media and email campaigns.
Job Titles:
- Director of Membership and Development
Sarah has a wealth of experience in policy, campaigning, research and community development.
She is passionate about tackling health inequalities and finding common cause between diverse groups of people to make health and care services more inclusive. Sarah has worked at National Voices since January 2022, first as Head of Policy (maternity cover), then as Interim CEO, then as Director of Membership and Development. Prior to joining National Voices, Sarah led the campaigns and health policy influencing work of Friends, Families and Travellers, the UK's largest charity working to end racism and discrimination against Gypsy, Roma and Traveller people.
Job Titles:
- Director of Policy and External Affairs
- Is Director of Policy and External Affairs
Prior to joining she was the Senior Policy Manager at the Taskforce for Lung Health developing their integrated care strategy, and Taskforce priorities for the year ahead. Previously she worked as the Health and Integration Policy Manager at Alzheimer's Society, responsible for the strategic and operational direction of health policy at the charity. Before moving into the charity policy sector in 2021, Sharon was an award-winning senior correspondent at the Health Service Journal leading on integration, integrated care systems, commissioning and social care reform. She also acts as an advisor to the Department of Transport on the accessibility of UK travel.
Sharon Brennan is Director of Policy and External Affairs at National Voices.
Job Titles:
- Senior Manager in NHS England
Sherone Phillips tells us more about herself, and what motivated her to apply to become a National Voices Trustee
Sherone is a senior manager in NHS England and NHS Improvement national Palliative and End of Life Care programme which is part of the Personalised Care Group.
Her role before that involved working with people with lived experience of complex health and care needs to be skilled contributors in health and care coproduction and codesign. Sherone also has significant experience of the voluntary sector when working as operational and service lead in a local disabled persons user led organisation with charitable status. Before that, in a local authority, she had various quality improvement roles as well as change management focus in supporting the implementation of personalisation in social care. Sherone is foremost a carer, a role which began when she was 12 years old.
Tessa joined National Voices in our newly created Policy Manager role in July 2023.
She brings with her unique insights from her background as a Clinical Psychologist working in NHS community mental health and dementia services. Tessa moved into the health charity policy sector in 2022 with a role in the policy team at National Voices' member Alzheimer's Society, and brings a collaborative, inclusive approach to listening and enabling change in health policy. At National Voices, Tessa's work is focused on coordinating the VCSE Health and Wellbeing Alliance, a partnership between health and care charities, on the one hand, and system partners, on the other, with a focus on tackling health inequalities. National Voices and NAVCA act as joint co-ordinators of the VCSE Health and Wellbeing Alliance, which is funded by the Department of Health and Social Care, NHS England and the UK Health Security Agency. She will also lead on the development of new policy areas based on the expertise and insight of our members and the communities they represent.