Board biographies

The Trust Board is made up of a Chairperson and members of our Executive Management team including the Chief Executive, and Non-Executive Directors.

Click on the profiles below to see more about our Board members:

Dr Linda Patterson

OBE FRCP – Chair

Dr Patterson has strong clinical leadership experience in both community and hospital settings, specialising in care for older people, and 25 years working in board level roles.

Alongside her clinical practice, she has held NHS leadership positions at both a local and national level, including Medical Director at Burnley Health Care NHS Trust, Medical Director for the Commission for Health Improvement, now the Care Quality Commission, and Clinical Vice President of the Royal College of Physicians.

Dr Patterson’s former roles include Non-Executive Director for the National Patient Safety Agency, with responsibilities including equality and diversity, and a Board member for the Healthcare Quality Improvement Partnership. She was also Chair of a national NHS England Patient Safety Expert Group. A former Trustee of the Alzheimer’s Society charity, her experience includes Non-Executive Director of Calderdale and Huddersfield NHS Foundation Trust.

Alongside her Board role, Dr Patterson is doing clinical advisory work both in the UK and internationally, and is a commissioner for the independent think tank, the Health Devolution Commission, looking at ways to join up health and social care, whilst considering the social factors that impact on health.
Therese Patten

Chief Executive

Therese has extensive NHS Board level experience, working across community, mental health, acute and specialist healthcare in the NHS.

She joined our Trust from Southport and Ormskirk Hospital NHS Trust, where she was Deputy Chief Executive and Director of Strategy.

Therese’s previous experience includes senior leadership roles at Alder Hey Children’s NHS Foundation Trust, 5 Boroughs Partnership NHS Foundation Trust and Liverpool Community Health. She has also spent a short period working in the private sector with GP provider companies.

Before joining the NHS in 1999, Therese spent nine years working in health development in Zimbabwe, Somaliland and Pakistan.

Alongside her Chief Executive role, Therese is the place lead for the Bradford District and Craven Health and Care Partnership, with responsibility for the work of the integrated care board, which is a sub-committee of the NHS West Yorkshire Integrated Care Board (ICB), and she sits on the NHS West Yorkshire Integrated Care Board. She is also West Yorkshire’s Neurodiversity (ND) Champion, supporting the West Yorkshire Health and Care Partnership’s programme on autism and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) across all ages.

Therese is a Trustee on the Board of NHS Providers where she represents the interests of mental health trusts.
Phil Hubbard

Director of Nursing, Professions and Care Standards (DIPC) and Deputy Chief Executive

Phil’s career spans 33 years across hospital, primary, mental health and community care settings.

Since joining the Trust in 2012, she has held a number of senior roles and has a strong track record of leading large-scale service improvements, working with partners across the District.

Phil, who is a registered nurse, was instrumental in reshaping the Trust’s children’s service and also worked alongside primary care providers to establish new community partnerships, to better support local communities’ health and care needs.

Previously, as a Nurse Consultant at Bradford and Airedale Community Health services, Phil was responsible for several initiatives including developing a specialist clinical service to support people with learning disabilities.
Kelly Barker

Chief Operating Officer

Kelly’s career spans over 20 years with the NHS, starting as a Health Care Support Worker, before qualifying as a Mental Health Nurse, working clinically across the breadth of inpatient and community settings. She then moved into a number of senior operational roles, including Deputy Director of Operations at the Care Trust.

Kelly has worked in Bradford since 2004 and is passionate and committed to leading and delivering high quality services to our communities. Kelly has operationally led services spanning both community and mental health, with a strong focus on system and partnership working, and has delivered a number of key service improvements and innovations.

Kelly is a values driven leader, committed to creating ‘better lives together’ by using the Care Trust Way, our quality improvement methodology, and having co-production at the heart of everything we do.
Tim Rycroft

Chief Information Officer

Tim joined the organisation from Airedale NHS Foundation Trust, following seven years as Head of Information Technology (IT) and Information Governance (IG). During his time at Airedale, Tim managed the pilots and early implementation of the multi-agency telemedicine service for people with long term conditions. This was developed further by the ‘Airedale Hub’ that achieved national award recognition for its innovative work in supporting care homes.

Before joining Airedale, Tim was Head of Technology Business Solutions at the National Policing Improvements Agency where he led the IT delivery for a new state-of-the-art £12 million forensic training centre and introduced a range of innovative technologies to support operational learning.

Tim brings considerable information management and technology (IM&T) experience to the new role, both within the NHS and national policing agencies.

Tim is a non-voting member of the Board.
Dr David Sims

Medical Director

David is a child and adolescent psychiatrist and has worked as a consultant for the Care Trust since 2002, initially in Airedale and then as an autism and intellectual disability specialist. He was quality lead for the development of a parent training programme about the Autistic Spectrum, which is now used internationally.

Following the development of new special schools, he supported the Care Trust’s Child and Adolescent Mental Health Service (CAMHS) to run consultation clinics with special school nurses and moved clinical work into special schools. He has had a number of education roles for doctors in training, including six years as Training Programme Director for child and adolescent psychiatrists in Yorkshire. He has been Deputy Medical Director at the Trust, with responsibility for medical staffing, for a number of years.

David is governor of a local special school for communication and interaction difficulties. He is a tutor for PRIME, a faith based medical education charity that aims to improve standards of health care education worldwide, and has made a number of short term visits to Nepal over the last 10 years teaching mental health as part of multi-national teams.
Mike Woodhead

Chief Finance Officer

Mike is a highly experienced finance professional with a broad range of experience in the public sector, in senior leadership roles across health and care organisations.

Prior to joining our Trust, Mike was joint Chief Finance Officer (CFO) for Bury Clinical Commissioning Group and Bury Council, where he was also Vice-Chair of the Bury Strategic Estates Group.

Mike has 17 years in consultancy roles including interim Deputy CFO for Bury CCG, where he led the outline financial case for Greater Manchester (GM) Devolution, working with providers, CCGs and national commissioners.

His experience also includes leading the learning disability and mental health workstreams at Tameside and Glossop CCG, as part of a wider programme to establish an integrated care organisation.

Alongside his Trust role, Mike is also the Director of Finance for Bradford District and Craven Health and Care Partnership.
Bob Champion

Chief People Officer

Bob Champion is a Chartered Fellow of the CIPD and has worked in and around the NHS for around 49 years, starting as a hospital porter in Birmingham, before training as an operating department assistant working in theatres.

His extensive experience includes almost 20 years working across the West Midlands and North Yorkshire Ambulance Services, where he was one of the first operational paramedics and finally Assistant Director of Personnel with the North Yorkshire Service, where Bob studied for his HR degree. Since the late 1990’s, Bob has led human resources and organisational development functions at or around board level in a range of NHS organisations, in substantive, consultancy and interim roles.

Bob is passionate about employee engagement, health and wellbeing, and partnership working with staff side colleagues, alongside equality and diversity, having chaired the National Equalities Forum in a previous role.
Farhan Rafiq

Director of Transformation, Improvement and Productivity

Farhan Rafiq is an accomplished leader with a passion for driving transformation, innovation, and improvement within the healthcare sector.

As our Director of Transformation, Productivity and Improvement, Farhan brings a wealth of experience in leading cross-functional teams to deliver impactful, outcome-driven results. With a background spanning business development, programme implementation, and strategic partnership building, he has successfully secured significant funding and led initiatives that have transformed services across community health and care.

Farhan is committed to fostering collaboration, developing innovative solutions, and ensuring the efficient delivery of services that align with local priorities.

His leadership in the establishment of the Innovation Hub for Bradford District and Craven, exemplifies his dedication to accelerating healthcare advancements. This is complemented by transformational experience of leading and managing a multi-million-pound private sector training business in the further education and apprenticeships sector.

Outside of work, Farhan is a devoted family man, committed to his faith, and is very involved in community and voluntary activities, including his role as a Parent Governor at a further education college in Leeds, and a volunteer caseworker for a charity, all demonstrating his commitment to social impact and public service.
Christopher Malish

Non-Executive Director

Christopher Malish has extensive experience in the finance, education, audit and risk in the public sectors and was the Executive lead for both Finance and General Purposes Committee and Audit Committee.

This follows eight years at the University of Bradford, as the Interim Director of Finance, after progressing through a range of senior finance roles within the education sector.

A resident of Bingley, Christopher has lived in Bradford for the last seventeen years and is very passionate about supporting the local communities served by the Trust, in line with the Trust’s values.
Maz Ahmed

Non Executive Director

Maz, who is a qualified chartered accountant, is currently Operations Director for Morrisons Supermarkets plc. and has held a number of senior finance roles for the national retailer.  Previously he was Finance Director responsible for leadership of the finance team, with financial accountability for Morrisons’ 18 manufacturing sites, as well as the fresh trading division.

Maz brings extensive commercial and financial experience to the NED role.  He has a strong track record of leading organisational change and wide-ranging improvement initiatives, to meet customers’ needs.

Maz started his career at Morrisons in 2008 as part of the newly formed internal audit function.  Since then Maz has led the implementation of a business-wide financial reporting system and strategic reviews of the manufacturing division, including the acquisition of new businesses.  His leadership role includes building and promoting a culture of talent management, building capability and improving diversity.  He is also the sponsor of Morrison’s Black, Asian and Ethnic Minority (BAME) programme, to improve diversity for BAME colleagues, and has recently been recognised in the 2020 Empower Ethnic Minority Role Model list.

Prior to Morrisons, Maz worked in external audit with a national audit firm, supporting clients across a range of industries including the public sector.
Simon Lewis

Non Executive Director

Simon Lewis brings a wealth of legal, regulatory and commercial experience to the Board. He chairs the Mental Health Legislation Committee. He sits on the People and Culture Committee and the Audit Committee. He serves as the Senior Independent Director and Deputy Chair.

Simon is a barrister, whose areas of interest include employment issues, equality and anti-discrimination, safeguarding and mental health legislation. He is a part-time judge. Simon has held a number of board-level roles in relevant sectors and various independent regulatory roles within sport, healthcare and business.
Alyson McGregor MBE

Non Executive Director

Alyson has almost 40 years’ experience working in a range of health roles in the public, private and voluntary sector as well as over nine years Board level experience with Bradford and Airedale Primary Care Trusts. Alyson started her working life in public health in Bradford and Airedale in 1983, managing health improvement services.

She has worked at district, regional and national levels and is the co-founder and National Director of Altogether Better, an NHS network organisation. She has many years’ experience of using systems’ approaches and working collaboratively across organisational boundaries with people, to codesign solutions to the challenges and problems that both the NHS and people in communities are facing.

She has worked extensively with primary care for over 10 years, supporting them to implement a new model of care called collaborative practice, with citizens as partners. She has worked with over 30 CCGs across the country, as well as working internationally. In recent years, she has developed social prescribing pilots in Ontario which are being adopted by the Canadian government.

Alyson is a member of the NHS Leadership Academy faculty and part of NHS England’s Personalised Care Leadership Programme team. She was a member of the Prime Minister’s GP Challenge Advisory Group, is a founding member of the National Social Prescribing Network Steering Group and is currently a member of the Volunteering Taskforce set up by the Cabinet Office.

She was voted by the Health Service Journal as one of the top 50 inspirational women leaders in the NHS and was awarded an MBE for services to Collaborative Practice and service development in the NHS, in the 2021 New Year Honours list.
Mark Rawcliffe

Non Executive Director

Mark has held senior roles in the financial sector for over 21 years and is currently responsible for building and delivering the Banking Digital Transformation Strategy for Lloyds Banking Group. His banking-based career quickly adapted from frontline posts in diverse communities, to more strategic roles including managing operations teams and leading large regulatory change programmes.

Mark has successfully created and led change strategies whilst managing budgets at times when cost savings have been key, but also being cognisant of risks and complex regulation. The initiatives he has delivered have positively impacted millions of customers and he has been proactive in innovatively supporting vulnerable customers. His financial acumen and digital expertise broadens the Board’s wealth of knowledge in these areas. He is also a member of various senior committees within the banking group.

Outside work, Mark is a family man and is passionate around supporting charities that have helped his family. He actively fundraises for them to make positive contributions to the lives of people in the community.
Sally Napper

Non Executive Director

A registered nurse, Sally brings considerable senior level clinical leadership NHS experience to her Non-Executive Director (NED) role and was previously an Associate NED for the Trust.

Sally started in the NHS as a nurse at Great Ormond Street Hospital. Her 38-year career includes Operational Director and then Chief Operating officer and Chief Nurse, at Bradford Teaching Hospitals. In this role she led the hospitals ‘Patient First’ programme to improve patients’ experience across all services, and was the professional lead for nursing, midwifery, and allied health professionals.

Sally’s Executive-level experience also includes Director of Nursing for Lancashire and South Cumbria for NHS England that oversees all NHS services, where she was responsible for the transforming care programme for people with learning disabilities.

Sally has also undertaken the role of Chief Executive and Director of Clinical Services at Rotherham Hospice.