Governance Our Board of Trustees The Board of Trustees is responsible for the governance and strategy of the Patients Association. The Board is made up of 11 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. Don Brereton CB - Honorary Treasurer and Vice Chair Don’s main career was in the civil service. He worked in health and social services posts, social security and the Cabinet Office Efficiency Unit. In his final post, in the Department for Work and Pensions, Don's directorate covered disability rights and policy across Government and delivery of the key disability and carers' benefits. Don was awarded a CB in the 2001 New Year’s Honours. Don moved on from the civil service in 2003 to become director of the national charity - Motability. Since his retirement from full time work, Don has continued to work with the public and voluntary sector. He served two terms as Chair of Carers UK and was a member and Vice Chair of the Standing Commission on Carers and a lay member of the NHS National Quality Board. Don is a Trustee and Chair of the Motability Defined Benefit Pension Scheme. He is also a Non-executive Director of Walthamstow Cricket, Tennis and Squash Club Don has a son, two daughters and seven grandchildren. His son, Sam, was born with Down’s syndrome. Sam now enjoys supported living with two other young adults but Don remains Sam’s primary family carer. Anna-Maria Rollin MBE Maria has worked in the NHS throughout her professional career and spent 34 years as a consultant anaesthetist at Epsom General Hospital, where she still retains an honorary contract. She was Senior Vice-President of the Council of the Royal College of Anaesthetists. She has always had an interest in patient information and was co-editor of a prizewinning book on the subject. She was a Lead Performance Assessor in Anaesthesia for the GMC and is currently a GMC Associate and PLAB examiner. She has an interest in medicolegal matters, and has written expert reports for the GMC, NHS Resolution and the Medical Defence organisations. Most of her publications have been concerned with standard-setting, quality assurance, and safety. 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. Suzanne White Suzanne White is an experienced clinical negligence solicitor, partner, and Head of the Clinical Negligence Department at Leigh Day. She has a medical background and previously worked as a senior radiographer at King’s College Hospital. She went on to study Law and has specialised in this area of expertise since qualifying in 1999. Suzanne is head of a department at Leigh Day and specialises solely in clinical negligence and runs a varied caseload of complex, maximum severity claims acting for injured patients. Besides being a lawyer, Suzanne is a passionate advocate of patients’ rights and has campaigned for patient safety throughout her career. 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. 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. 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. Members of our Finance Committee are: Don Brereton Chair Meryl Davies Wiqas Valji 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. Terms of reference The terms of reference for our Board of Trustees and our Committees are available here. Chief Executive - Rachel Power Rachel has over 20 years’ experience of working in health and social care within the voluntary sector. She joined the Patients Association as its Chief Executive in June 2017 and has overseen a significant period of change, establishing a new sen ior leadership team and a new three-year strategy to help drive the organisation forward. She is passionate about empowering patients and speaking on their behalf to ensure the patient voice is heard and acted upon. 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