I was a psychiatric nurse for 30 years in a variety of roles. I am now a counsellor in private practice in Aylesbury. My aim was and is to try and make a difference to people’s lives, whether as a nurse, a therapist or a Governor.

 

I have a deep affection for mental health services. When done well, they can save lives. When things go wrong, we should learn from these and grow as people and as an organisation. And make reparation as far as possible.

Representing members gives me a chance to speak for people who all too often feel they have no voice.

I was born and raised in Chesham in Buckinghamshire and have lived most of my life in this county. I trained as a psychiatric nurse at the then county hospital, St. John’s in Stone.My working life has been spent in healthcare in various clinical and managerial posts in the NHS. I am now retired and do some voluntary work at the local Foodbank and as a public Governor.

I remain committed to the NHS and the pursuit of excellent care. My working experience has given me a good understanding of the systems and challenges in delivering good healthcare, and an appreciation of the commitment of NHS staff. Having retired a few years ago, I believe sufficient time has passed since I was employed by the NHS, indeed Oxford Health NHS Foundation Trust, to act as a public Governor.

The coming years will be a challenge for the NHS, and I hope as a Governor, I am able to understand the position of the Trust’s managers, the challenges and pressures of clinical staff while always focusing on the need for the public to have access to excellent, state of the art, compassionate care. The role of a Governor is to hold the Board to account in this regard.

I am a retired senior civil servant with operational experience from Defence and the Home Office, as well as the private sector. I have led major change programmes in all three sectors.

Over the past 15 years, I have been caring for my wife and daughter who have been seriously ill. They have received excellent support from the Health Trusts in Oxford and Buckinghamshire.

Last year, I was diagnosed with a brain tumour and have experienced similar excellent care and support. Since retiring, I have engaged with carer groups to share experiences and encourage other carers. During hospital visits I have met outstanding nurses, doctors, OT staff and consultants – and have acquired understanding of life on the wards and associated patient experiences.

As a Governor, I seek to represent the interests and needs of patients, carers and staff, and to provide my experiences of change programmes to those leading transformation projects in the Oxford Health NHS Foundation Trust. To ensure this, I am connected to the wider interests and needs of local staff, patients and carers I am exploring leading workshops at the Whiteleaf Centre.

Having spent 35 years working in the NHS in Oxfordshire, the Health Service is ‘in my blood’.

My remit during my working life was the total management of medical devices across all the NHS Trusts, and their disciplines in Oxfordshire and parts of other counties too. This involved identifying funding for on-going needs and new projects, helping with the procurement and working with the engineers on the maintenance and repair of the full range of medical devices. Eventually the equipment was decommissioned and the round of work began again.

It was so exciting in the age when computers and digital devices arrived which made so much difference to patient care. I loved my work.

Retirement did not mean stopping an involvement with healthcare: I enjoy being secretary to my GP Surgery’s Patient Participation Group (PPG), and also joining with other PPGs in West Oxfordshire to identify common issues which we can help to resolve.

When the chance came along to become a Governor of Oxford Health, the picture appeared to be complete: here was an opportunity to work with a wide variety of services which support the acute sectors – podiatry, physiotherapy, community nursing and so much more.

Representing members means understanding the issues facing the NHS from the points of view of a wider spectrum – patients, carers, staff and management. It is a great privilege to be involved in the NHS in these challenging times. We all need to find positive ways to work together to resolve the issues which we face and I look forward to doing my best to help to make a difference in our towns, our Districts and our County.

I want to see Oxford Health deliver better services, and getting those around the table to understand ‘the real’ world impact of their decisions is important to do this. I speak as a service user, with a wide network within social housing, and other sectors where a sizeable number regularly use the services of Oxford Health. I also meet the general public regularly in my roles within the Citizens Advice, health, and services sectors.

My passion for service improvement and fresh insight from the business sector guides my desire to be a member of Oxford Health. My understanding of health, as well as the other sectors which affect it, prepares me to be effective governor. Due to my background, I have a critical appreciation of meeting the ever changing needs of patience, dignity, and privacy, and I hope to bring my relevant experience to this role.

I also have an understanding of culture, and its effect on service and service perceptions. Thus the rich diversity of NHS patients will be a characteristic I can relate to well and work positively for the benefit of. I also understand the need for more partnership working, as a means of pooling scarce and dwindling resources.

This type of working has helped service delivery proposals I brought to housing and the Citizens Advice network. I therefore hope this relevant exposure to help my performance as a Governor.

Being a representative of members means being a conduit to help management understand the consequences of their decisions. I hope to be able to take advantage of expertise and perspectives from outside their sector to meet the changing operational environment of the Oxford Health NHS Trust.

This also means being a champion for members’ causes, engaging stakeholders locally and nationally through effective working. As a current member of a Scrutiny Panel in housing, I have learned to regularly influence and challenge their work which I hope to replicate in the health sector.

I was born and raised in Guyana, a former British colony in South America where 1 in 3 people today live below the poverty line. I have seen abject poverty firsthand and I am passionate about empowering people out of poverty.

Growing up in Guyana and then working as a trained journalist and specialising in health journalism, I realized that access to quality education and health care were two of the most important elements of poverty alleviation. As a poor country Guyana struggled to deliver in these areas and as a journalist and later Editor-in-Chief of the state broadcasting radio station, I emphasized stories which were focused on these problems.

I came to the UK 16 years ago to read for an MA in International Journalism. Since completing that, I have worked in public and media relations for a national charity which provides care and practical support to women facing crisis pregnancies. The charity runs 23 houses around the country which provide accommodation to women who are pregnant and homeless and 30 care centres which provide counselling to vulnerable women.

It is essential we reach out to vulnerable people to help empower them out of poverty through provision of practical support. I believe we are lucky to have a system in the UK where rich and poor have access to health and social care. It is a model which must be envied by countries around the world. However there are many challenges it faces and we have to ensure that our services which are so key and fundamental to people who are vulnerable, improve and deliver quality healthcare.

This is why I stood for election for the position of Public Governor. I want to learn and identify the areas which are failing the people we serve and to work with the Trust in ensuring these are addressed urgently and that lessons are learnt and systems improved where needed. As the services we provide improve I also want to use my skills in communication and media acquired over the last 25 years to help promote these achievements and to encourage greater feedback from those we are here to serve.

I am a recently retired chartered accountant, having been a Finance Director with Baxter Healthcare for the last 20 years.

I live in South Oxfordshire, and I am a NHS lay member for governance with a local Clinical Commissioning Group, as well as a School Governor and involved with the local surgery Patient Participation Group.

My family are Oxford Health service users and I am particularly interested in supporting the trust to work efficiently with other NHS organisations, while ensuring effective timely patient intervention and treatment. I particularly want to support  seamless transition from children’s to adult services.

Having seen the benefit of community support in a different area for my elderly parents, I also want to ensure that Oxford Health continue to support individuals living at home.

As a public governor I want to ensure that the Trust executive and non-executives continue to improve performance and deliver the highest quality service.

I am a local resident of Oxfordshire. I have 30 years’ experience as a Registered Nurse working in the private sector and charitable organisations.

My background is in the management of elderly dementia care homes and have commissioned several care homes for charitable organisations.

I am extremely passionate about the delivery of good quality care. I have experience of being a patient, visitor as well as being a family member of a patient at our local NHS hospital.

I am currently a Care Management Consultant supporting distressed services in meeting with regulatory and compliance issues. My experience in this area will help me to support the Trust in addressing some of the issues relating to care standards.

My motivation to become a Governor stems from my desire to help support the process by Oxford Health to achieving its goal of delivering good quality care and involving patients and carers to achieve the best outcomes, safety and experience.

I also hope to help patients, their families, carers, workers and local residents get better services and conditions in Oxford Health NHS foundation Trust hospitals and facilities.

Furthermore, I believe representing the views and interest of members to the Trust will influence proposals to make changes to services, it will provide direct link between myself and the decision makers at the Trust.

I became a carer governor after being a carer for my mum, especially in the last two years of her life.

I feel it is very necessary for carers not to feel they are alone, or they are the only person doing the caring: it is so important to understand we need to look after ourselves first and foremost, while we care for the person needing care. When the carer gets unwell, the problems escalate.

I decided to become a carer governor last year, to see what I could do to be a support in my local community for people in similar situations I had been in.

Being a governor, I feel we fill the space between the Board of Directors and the public. 

I put myself forward as a carer governor four years ago after someone close to me was diagnosed with a serious psychiatric illness, and was, and is being treated by Oxford Health.

I was also one of the carers who looked after my mum during the last three years of her life as she declined with vascular dementia.

I was hoping that these real-life experiences of being a carer for people in these situations would enable me to add a perspective to the trust’s directions and policies, and believe that this has been the case.

I am convinced that there is a significant role for governors to ensure that the trust considers the perspective of service users, staff, carers and the public.

In my time as being a governor, and latterly the Lead Governor, I can see that the trust do take into account these views when making decisions.

I think it is particularly important that the voices of the groups the governors represent are heard now in a difficult financial environment and in a constantly changing landscape within the NHS.

In my professional life I am a Chartered Accountant specialising in the music business, and I work for an artist-led record company.

My name is Alan Jones and I am a 69 year old retired business man.

I worked in the automotive industry for over 40 years, much of the time managing a team of people dealing with the pressure of meeting targets and budgets; listening to ideas and making decisions about best practice and how to achieve goals and improve service provision.

I have been a carer for my son who has enduring mental health problems for fifteen years and felt that, if elected, I would be able to bring the experience gained at work plus that from my involvement with mental health services to the post.

I have been a member of Rethink and the Carers Reference Group for some time, and I enjoy the challenge of ensuring that the views of service users are brought to the attention of the people shaping and funding Oxfordshire & Buckinghamshire mental health services.

I believe that to improve services, we must ensure that those people holding the purse strings are making the right decisions, and introducing policies that meet the needs of all service users.

Our aim must be to provide first class mental health facilities, from initial diagnosis right through treatment, both in hospital and the community.

Together, we can work to make this Authority a place where staff want to work and Service Users feel their needs are met and they are treated with respect and dignity.

Apart from being a staff governor for Buckinghamshire & Oxfordshire, I am a working mother of three, and I enjoy keeping active (which is helpful with three children).

I qualified as a mental health nurse in 2002 and worked in Devon before coming to work for Oxford Health NHS Foundation Trust back in 2005.

I truly believe in our workforce and feel that valuing staff is vital for job satisfaction and for their health and wellbeing. I wanted to be able to do more to support our staff and get their voices heard.

It gives me a sense of pride in being able to represent members who may not feel they are being heard. It also helps bring a sense of satisfaction being able to represent my members and to also share what is being done across our organisation, particularly in response to thoughts and feelings they have raised.

I am passionate that members of Oxford Health are represented and their opinions heard across Oxfordshire & Buckinghamshire and they feel they work for an organisation that values and cares about them.

I am keen to receive comments in order that I, as a staff governor, can relay your needs, your experiences and your feelings directly to the Board of Directors that manages the mental health and local community non-emergency health and supportive services in Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire.

I am a registered nurse and I have been working in the NHS since 1975.

I trained as a sick children’s nurse at Yorkhill hospital in Glasgow and as a general nurse at the Western general in Edinburgh. I worked n London at St Bartholomews hospital before moving to Witney and having a family.

I now work as a nurse at Witney community hospital part time and have another role as a representative for the Royal college of nursing.

Apart from work, I enjoy getting involved in local issues and I campaigned for the national health action party at the last two elections. We have a dog from the blue cross and enjoy exploring the Cotswolds in our spare time.

I wanted to become a staff governor as I felt that it was necessary for the decision makers to hear from the opinions of the staff, some of whom don’t always have a voice at the table. I chose to work locally after returning to work when my children were older, and I feel that good ideas come from the ground up, and it is important that staff have someone who can pass these on.

Becoming involved with the RCN  also gave me the confidence to stand for election as a staff governor, and the ability to make my voice heard.

I hope that by being able to speak up when staff talk to me about issues, I am able to have some influence on any decisions taken.

I am married and live in South West Oxfordshire with my wife Elizabeth, who also works for the NHS as an Emergency Nurse Practitioner, and our labrador dog. Our twin children have long since flown the nest, neither of which have wisely chosen to work in healthcare!

I have been a qualified dental surgeon working exclusively within the NHS for 34 years , the last 23 of which have been in Oxfordshire working for the community dental service. It is a privilege to be able to ensure that the most vulnerable of our society have access to high quality, caring dentistry that we all feel entitled to, but many struggle to access.

I consider myself very fortunate to have served as a governor for two years in total in recent years, first for Specialised and Forensics directorate and then more recently Children’s and Young People. I was honoured to be re-elected and I hope I can make a difference over the next 3 years.

Never has the NHS been under such pressure to continually improve performance yet achieving real savings to the exchequer year on year. The board has a difficult job and has many difficult decisions to make in the coming years. It is the role of governors to make sure that the board are accountable for their actions and are equitable in this respect to our patients and their staff.

I am motivated to be an effective governor and help mould the future of the trust by bringing new ideas about how services can be developed in ever changing NHS. I feel It is often the staff working at the coal face that have the best ideas and a good receptive governor can help make them happen and be the voice for the little person.

Davina retired in June 2010 from her role as Deputy Chief Constable of Northamptonshire Police having been a Police Officer for 34 years.

Davina served in the Metropolitan Police for a few years before transferring to Thames Valley Police where she spent the vast majority of her time policing in Milton Keynes, Faringdon and Cowley before becoming the Area Commander for South and West Oxfordshire. Davina left Thames Valley to serve in Leicestershire as an Assistant Chief Constable for 4 years before moving to Northamptonshire as Deputy Chief Constable towards the end of 2005.

Davina joined the Police to make a difference to the lives of the most vulnerable and this drive and passion is still very strong. She is keen to put her experience and skills gained throughout her career to good use and became a Trustee of Age UK Oxfordshire (AUKO) in November 2010.

In March 2016 Davina became Chair of Trustees for AUKO and Action for Carers Oxfordshire.

Davina is a ‘nominated governor’ on the Council of Governors and is keen to see the particular issues and challenges for older people and carers being properly catered for when they need to access our services. She is also keen to see strong co-operation and partnership working between, and across, the statutory and voluntary sectors bringing positive outcomes for older people and carers.

Davina hopes that by being on the Council of Governors, she can give a voice and be an advocate for those older people and carers who would otherwise not be heard.

 Astrid is a Cognitive Neuroscientist with a wealth of experience in research, teaching and academic leadership.

Astrid started her education in Germany where she obtained a degree in Business Studies. She then moved to the UK, where she completed an MSc in Experimental Psychology at the University of Sussex, before heading to the University of St. Andrews where she obtained a PhD in Psychology.

Astrid joined Oxford Brookes University in September 2016 as Associate Dean for Strategy and Development in the Faculty of Health and Life Sciences before being appointed to the role of PVC/Dean in May 2017. Prior to this Astrid worked at the University of Dundee for 12 years. During her time there she held a number of strategic leadership roles including Dean of the School of Psychology and Associate Dean (Academic) in the School of Social Sciences.

Until he retired in 2010, David was head of the University of Oxford’s Department of Primary Health Care and had worked for many years as a NHS general practitioner in Oxford.

He is still employed part-time by the University and continues a long-term research interest in the early diagnosis and treatment of common diseases.

He also leads a programme of international research which aims to improve primary care quality in low-income countries.

In 2011, he was made an OBE for services to medicine.

Sula trained as a nurse in Dublin. She has worked in a range of clinical settings including hospitals, community and primary care as well as education.

Sula’s goal as a member of Oxfordshire Clinical Commissioning Group’s Board is to safeguard high standards in the commissioning of high quality healthcare and to ensure maintaining those high standards is a shared responsibility.

Sula is the Caldicott Guardian and Freedom to Speak Up Guardian for the Oxfordshire Clinical Commissioning Group.

My wife and I relocated to Bicester in 1992 and since then we have enjoyed being part of the community. I’ve served as District Councillor, and am currently a Bicester Town Councillor.  I’ve been a County Councillor since 2006. Other interests include being a school governor, serve on the local hospital League of Friends, and a local community association.