Governance View and download our 2024 Annual Review The Patients Association Board of Trustees The Board of Trustees is responsible for the governance and strategy of the Patients Association. The Board is made up of ten trustees, who have full legal responsibility for the actions of the Patients Association. All trustees retire at the close of the third annual general meeting following their taking office and become eligible for re-election or re-appointment for a maximum of one full term and in, exceptional circumstances, for up to two additional years. Julie Thallon - Chair Julie trained as a nurse in London and specialised in district nursing before a long career in NHS management. She has worked across all types of NHS organisations including executive positions as Director of Nursing and Chief Operating Officer with acute trusts and as Director of Performance & Commissioning and Director of Quality for CCGs. Six years ago Julie established her own consultancy company and has been working as an independent consultant ever since; she is currently also a Non-Executive Director for the East of England Ambulance NHS Trust. An experienced NHS leader and executive coach, Julie continues to provide management and development support on contract to NHS organisations across the country. Julie hopes to bring her wealth of NHS experience and expertise to support the Patients Association in its extremely important work supporting patients. Julie lives in Norfolk with her husband and a dog, a cat, three chickens and five sheep. Mark Blaney Mark worked for the NHS in various roles for 17 years, during which time he trained as a CIPFA accountant. He then worked as a Finance Manager in the Probation Service for over 6 years. After a stint of 23 years in public services, he transferred to the charitable sector in 2013 when he joined the Royal College of Anaesthetists as Financial Controller. He has been Finance Director at the College for the last ten years. During his time at the College, he was a non-exec director of the London Universities Purchasing Consortium, and then became it's Chair. He splits his time between Hertfordshire and Yorkshire, and likes nothing better than walking up hills, walking the dogs and swimming. Rachel King Rachel is working as an International Evidence Manager for an international Multiple Sclerosis charity. She leads the Atlas of MS project which provides vital evidence that can be used in advocacy to improve the lives of people with MS around the world. Prior to this she ran her own market research and insight consultancy supporting not-for-profit organisations including patient organisations to help them understand their beneficiaries, employees/volunteers as well as other stakeholders better. Rachel lives with two chronic conditions; asthma and hypermobile Ehlers Danlos Syndrome (hEDS) which brings her into contact with healthcare professionals on a regular basis. She is passionate that patients’ voices are heard to understand what is important to each individual and enable shared decision making with respect to care and treatment. True patient partnership can provide critical insight to drive change and implement improvements to ensure patients can ultimately live their best lives. Meryl Davies Meryl has held senior roles in a number of charities. After a decade in international development, she made the move to UK-based work when she took on the role of CEO of Re-engage, a national charity focussed on social isolation and loneliness experienced people over 75. Meryl then joined Morden College as Chief Executive Officer in October 2023. She is passionately committed to the importance of listening and involving people who are most impacted by the work of a charity but too often still don’t have a voice in finding solutions. She is particularly interested in including the voices of LGBTQ+ older people when developing health and well-being interventions. Meryl is a trustee at YoungMinds, the mental health charity. Wiqas Valji Wiqas Valji qualified as pharmacist in 2007 and started his clinical career as a hospital pharmacist working for the NHS in London. He then moved into healthcare information technology. For the last decade, he has worked for global IT software companies who provide software to the NHS. His extensive experience in this area has made him a champion of ensuring technology works for both patients and clinicians and contributing to better outcomes and experiences for patients. Working for American and Swedish companies has given Wiqas exposure to international healthcare markets as well as the differing cultural and business practices. Currently, Wiqas works for Oracle Health and has an interest in electronic medication management system development and implementation as well as clinical decision support systems. Professor Alf Collins Professor Alf Collins is a freelance health consultant. From 2016-2023, he was NHS England’s National Clinical Director for personalised care. Shared decision making, care planning, self management support, social prescribing and health literacy sat within his policy portfolio and he led on implementation of Universal Personalised Care, one of five key shifts for the NHS in the 2019 Long Term Plan. He is an internationally respected authority on person-centred care and has published widely on shared decision making, measurement in person-centred care, high value care and Rethinking Medicine. He was a community consultant in pain management for many years and in parallel worked in a number of senior leadership roles in primary care. He also worked for a decade with the Health Foundation, helping lead applied research and implementation programmes in person-centred care. He has honorary fellowships from the Royal College of Physicians and the Royal College of General Practitioners and a Visiting Professorship in Healthcare Policy at Coventry University. Tom Grinyer Tom serves as Group Chief Executive Officer for the Institute of Physics, the sixth membership organisation he has worked for in the past 25 years and the third as chief executive. Tom was Group Chief Executive at the British Medical Association, leading the organisation through the Covid-19 pandemic and restructuring the BMA with a particular emphasis on membership engagement and experience. Prior to the BMA, Tom led the Royal College of Anaesthetists, which grew substantially under his leadership. Tom has also previously been the Executive Director of Strategy, Communications and Policy at the Royal College of Physicians, England’s oldest medical royal college, where he was also interim Chief Executive and introduced the organisation’s first ever strategy in its 500-year history. Julia Ross Julia Ross spent over 30 years in NHS management, working at national, regional, and local levels, until her retirement in April 2022. For the last 10 years she was commissioning Chief Executive and System Leader, first in Surrey Heartlands and then in Bristol, North Somerset, and South Gloucestershire. Starting her working life as a teacher before moving into health, Julia’s professional roles in the NHS encompassed: strategy design and delivery; organisation and leadership development; and citizen engagement, co-production, and communications. An accredited Arbinger Institute Outward Mindset facilitator, Julia is particularly focused on how individuals, teams, and organisations can collaborate more effectively to optimise outcomes and experience for the people they serve. Following retirement, Julia went on to have a successful career as a management consultant, working with the voluntary and public sectors. In addition to her role as Trustee of the Patients’ Association, Julia is the Chair of OneCare, the GP Federation representing practices across Bristol, North Somerset and South Gloucestershire, and is a visiting professor at the University of the West of England. Teena Chowdhury Teena’s professional experience spans the healthcare landscape including the structural, regulatory and operational complexities that shape it. She was the Deputy Director for the Care Quality Improvement Directorate at the Royal College of Physicians, where she worked for over seven years. Currently Teena is the Executive Director for Education at the Royal College of General Practitioners. She plays an active role on boards and advisory groups covering critical topics such as health inequalities, outpatient care, climate change and AI. Teena holds a Postgraduate Diploma in Digital Health Leadership from Imperial College London and a Masters in Medical Law and Ethics from King’s College London. Beyond healthcare, she serves as a non-executive director for AQA, an education charity and the largest exam board in the UK, where she is an independent member of the Audit, Risk and Compliance Committee. Carolin Ott Carolin Ott is a Senior Associate Solicitor in the human rights department at Leigh Day. She is a dual qualified lawyer, admitted as a solicitor in England & Wales and as an attorney to the New York State Bar. She has experience working on domestic and international human rights law cases. Her work focuses on judicial review challenges and claims under the Human Rights Act 1998 and her cases include a broad range of challenges to public bodies, including in the context of healthcare, care and with a focus on disability and equality rights. She has also worked extensively on the Covid Inquiry and obtained an in depth understanding of health and care structures in this context and as part of her more general casework. Carolin has worked in the human rights sector for over a decade and has represented vulnerable clients including patients and people drawing on care as well as various NGOs and organisations in high profile cases. She is passionate about giving people who wouldn’t ordinarily be listened to a voice and ensuring that their views and concerns are adequately heard. How trustees are appointed Our Trustees are appointed for a three-year term, which is renewable for a second term. When a Trustee position becomes vacant it is evaluated against the existing skills, knowledge and experience on the Board. Trustee vacancies are advertised publicly. Governance structure and policies Scheme of delegation Our Scheme of Delegation shows what authority the Board has delegated to committees, volunteers and staff under the powers of our Constitution. The scheme ensures the Trustees are able to fulfil their legal and constitutional duties, through delegation and monitoring. Conflicts of interest All Trustees must declare their interests, and any gifts or hospitality offered and received, and keep those declaration up to date. The Chief Executive maintains a log of any conflicts or hospitality offered. You can read our full policy. Complaints We strive to ensure all our services are delivered to a consistently high standard. However, no matter how diligent and skilful our staff and volunteers are, circumstances may arise where expectations have not been met. You can read our full policy. Safeguarding People who work for us need to ensure any member of the public we engage with through the helpline, project work, or any other means is responsible for understanding our safeguarding processes. You can read our full policy. Chief Executive - Rachel Power Rachel joined the Patients Association as Chief Executive in 2017 and has led changes in the charity, resulting in a more engaged membership and an increase in profile for the Patients Association and its goal of embedding patient partnership in the design and delivery of health and care services. Described by The Times as, “the UK’s foremost patient campaigner”, Rachel is a passionate advocate for patient-centred care. In 2023 she was invited by the English Patient Safety Commissioner to join her advisory group and be a member of the Martha’s Rule working group. She sits on the NHS Assembly and is also a member of the National Data Advisory Group, Personalised Care Institute Steering Group, and NHS England’s Patient Choice Steering Group, among other memberships. Rachel’s focus is on empowering patients through the provision of information that enables them to be active partners in their care. This is reflected in the Patients Association general election manifesto that provides the next Government with a roadmap of how to ensure access to high quality care and embed patient partnership across health and care services. If you have any queries about the work of the Patients Association, or would like to contact the operational team for any reason, please email [email protected]. For information on how to contact our helpline, please see here. Manage Cookie Preferences