Our governors

Brian Crouch, Lead Governor

During a long career with BT, Brian has sat on the North West Business Leaders Board and the Manchester Inward investment Board. Brian decided to become a governor at CWP because of the excellent care his son received. He wanted to help other carers get the best help advice and care from CWP.

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.

David Bull

David is a carer for his wife who lives with a long term condition, and over many years has worked with CWP Adult and Older People’s Community Mental Health Teams and Wellbeing Clinic. David is retired and has work experience in public sector law and governance and business risk management, is a volunteer youth worker and has been involved in the voluntary, community and faith sectors in Cheshire West and Chester and further afield. David holds professional qualifications with the Chartered Institute of Legal Executives, the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development and the Institute of Risk Management.

Joseph Gavin 

Joseph has worked within private services caring for the elderly, facilitating training on Personality Disorders for CWP and also creating leaflets on complex mental health issues. He has participated with different policies and groups within CWP, such as sexual safety, and has also become an Equality, Diversity and Inclusion champion and chair of the the Rainbow Tree Network. Josh considers himself a person who listens, and an advocate for those who are unable to do so, due to mental ill health. Joseph has been in mental health services since age 7; he would like to give back to the NHS as its services helped him when he severely struggled with his own mental health, and he now uses his experiences to help others. Joseph has also been nominated and shortlisted for service user of the year award with the Royal College of Psychiatrists.

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.

Phil Jarrold

Phil and his wife care for their daughter who was diagnosed with Bipolar Affective Disorder in 1998. They have both learnt a lot on their journey and have experience with both Inpatient and Community based Services within East, Central and South Cheshire. From 2000-2002 Phil was a Non-Executive Director for Mid Cheshire Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust. He then went on to become a Governor for CWP from 2010-2016. During his time as a Governor he participated in both the Membership & Development & Scrutiny Sub Committees. Phil is pleased to be re-appointed as a governor and hopes that his experience will enable him to continue to constructively question the strategic direction and various initiatives proposed by the Trust. In his spare time Phil likes to keep fit and healthy by walking, gardening and enjoys watching sports, he also loves being a grandad. Prior to retirement Phil ran various PLC subsidiary companies within the consumer food sector.

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.

Ferguson McQuarrie

Ferguson has lived in Wirral all his life and was elected to the Board of Governors in 2013 as a service user and carer governor. He currently works as an OT Assistant at CWP’s Springview site at Clatterbridge Hospital. He has been working in this role for the past seven years and feels it allows him to interact with patients, giving him a unique position as a former service user.

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.

Tim Seabrooke

Tim is a service user/ Carer governor who lives in Wirral with his wife who is his main carer. He comes from a software engineer background, owned his own company and has worked for a disabled charity based in London. He has a keen interest in mental health and wants to use his experience of being a service user to help shape services and have a positive impact as a governor.

Richard Agar

Richard worked for Merseyside Police 33 years, retiring at the rank of inspector. He was an elected public governor at Wirral University Teaching Hospital between 2007 and 2013, where he served on a number of committees. Richard also volunteers in community mediation and restorative justice in Wirral. Quality of care and patient experience are his main interests. 

Area: Wirral

Robert Walker

Rob is a former Sales & Marketing Executive who stepped away from this role due to mental health issues.

He was involved in the CWP NHS ‘Challenging Stigma’ project in 2006 and subsequently helped recruit over 10,000 members in order to meet Foundation Trust status in 2007. His work in the voluntary sector includes service user entrepreneurship involving collaboration with the award-winning NHS Wirral ‘Working 4 Health’ programme.

His work supporting vulnerable people has been acknowledged by the Institute of Mental Health where he is currently a member and the Academy of Further & Higher Education. Rob was given Honorary Lecturer status at Liverpool John Moores University, where he leads on service user involvement via his own company that supports vulnerable service users.   As a qualified lecturer Rob teaches from the lived experience perspective including leadership and empowerment in mental health.

As a Co-Chair of the Royal College of Psychiatrists Service User Recovery Forum. Rob challenged cultures within membership resulting in improved contracts and working conditions, including safeguarding. As a Governor he participated in an internal review of CWP NHS service user involvement strategy which helped to further improve the Trust’s approach to equality and diversity.

Rob believes it takes courage to challenge cultures.  He is now drawing on his lived experience in his role as Leadership Ambassador for the NHS Leadership Academy. Rob also recently used his experience as a CQC reviewer to support the Nursing programme standards review with the  Nursing & Midwifery Council.

Area: East Cheshire

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

Deepak Agnihotri

Deepak is a specialist physiotherapist in multi-disciplinary learning disabilities team. He is keen to listen to the concerns of the staff and be the voice of allied health professionals to influence decisions for the betterment of the workforce in this rapidly changing NHS environment. He is determined to work with the services to help them provide patient centered care and incorporate 6 Cs in the practice.

Area: Therapies

Ken Edwards

Ken has been a mental health nurse for 30 years, in that time working across many inpatient services. Since 1998 he has been responsible for delivering CWP staff clinical education programme and is currently Clinical Education Lead. This education role is also shared with his role as CWP Security and Safety Lead which Ken has held since 2005. His passion has always been to promoting staff values and ensuring equality across all levels within the organisation. This is Ken's second term as a Governor and he looks forward to working with all colleagues which address the common challenges ahead.

Area: Nursing

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

Gill Thompson

Gill qualified as an occupational therapist in 2000 and started working for CWP in 2001 after working as an occupational therapist in the NHS in Wales for a year.

During her time with CWP she has worked across the three Mental Health Inpatient services in the Trust in Acute Care, as well as some time in physical health and community mental health for older adults at the start of her career. She is currently the Lead Occupational Therapist in the Inpatient Rehabilitation service in Bowmere Hospital in Chester. During this time she has developed a strong network with other Allied Health Professionals (as well as with other clinical professionals in many different teams), which supports her ability to put forward Allied Health Professional Views to the Governor’s and feedback from the Governor’s meetings as required across the Trust via her extensive network.

Gill has also worked alongside her CWP post for two years as a CQC Specialist Advisor until 2020. She inspected other services around the UK in her role with them, which has helped her to understand the role of the CQC and share best practice from around the country with colleagues at CWP.

She feels very fortunate to have gained this role as a Governor representing AHPs and hopes to use the knowledge and skills she has built up over the years to help influence the provision of care to service users and staff in CWP in the future.

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

Profile to follow

Area: University of Liverpool

Gareth Gould

Since Gareth’s election in May 2019 he has served as the borough councillor for Strawberry Ward in Ellesmere Port, representing the local community and the wider Borough as Cheshire West & Chester-appointed Governor, and also as a Leader’s Champion for Mental Health, appointed in March 2020. Gareth also has previous experience as a service user.

In addition Gareth is familiar with regulatory & compliance issues, not only within politics but also as an educator. He is qualified in Further Education teaching and has taught in colleges, worked in the secondary sector as a cover supervisor, and has previous & current experience teaching in Higher Education. He is also a former & current local authority governor of a local primary school.

Gareth is looking forward to working with colleagues on the Council of Governors and via other approved mechanisms including sub-committees where relevant, to support the aims & objectives of the Trust - not least in his capacity as Borough Mental Health Champion in tackling the stigma of mental ill-health and actively promoting partnership working - and discharging his duties appropriately in accordance with the stated guidance.

Area: West Cheshire CCG

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