Group Chief Executive: Simon Weldon
Having served as Chief Executive of Kettering General Hospital from April 2018, Simon Weldon was appointed as Group Chief Executive for both Northampton and Kettering General Hospitals from July 2020. Building on the significant improvements made at Kettering Hospital, which were recognised by the CQC in May 2019, Simon’s focus is on strengthening collaboration between the two hospitals to improve the quality of services for people living across Northamptonshire.
Simon originally joined us from NHS England, where he held the posts of Director of Operations and Delivery and, formerly, Regional Chief Operating Officer. He was responsible for overseeing the CCG regulatory regime, heading up the emergency planning function, supporting the urgent and emergency care transformation programme, and leading the information function across NHS England. Specialising in acute contracting and operational performance, Simon also has significant experience in public health, primary care and specialised commissioning
Hospital Chief Executive: Deborah Needham
Medical Director: Andrew Chilton
Andrew was appointed as Medical Director in June 2010. Professor Chilton is a consultant gastroenterologist and hepatologist and honorary senior lecturer.
He is also a bowel cancer screening colonoscopist and therapeutic endoscopist. He has a strong interest in quality assurance authoring the national QA colonoscopy guidelines for bowel cancer screening and works at regional and national level in this area. He had held a variety of medical leadership roles and is interested in the strategic delivery of balanced, clinically effective, high quality care across the health economies.
Director of Nursing: Leanne Hackshall
Leanne is a senior nurse with 30 years of experience working in the NHS and remains passionate about patient care.
Leanne has a particular interest in the development of leadership in the nursing and allied health professional workforce to facilitate and grow competent and confident staff believing this to be the key in the delivery of a safe and positive patient experience.
Chief People Officer: Mark Smith
Mark joined the Trust in June 2014 to this key role, with lead responsibility for developing a highly skilled, trained and well-led workforce. In September 2019 he was appointed as Chief People Officer across both Kettering and Northampton General Hospitals.
Mark has the responsibility for creating systems and processes that engage all staff in living the values of the organisation.
Mark has held a number of roles in Human Resources within the NHS since 2004 and prior to this has held roles within the private sector.
Mark joined the Trust from his position as Director of People Development at Barking, Havering and Redbridge University Hospitals NHS Trust, where he led a cultural change campaign which resulted in consistently improving staff engagement outcomes throughout the organisation.
Director of Governance: Richard Apps
Richard joined the Trust in July 2018. This Role focusses on ensuring effective systems for patient safety, experience and learning, clinical effectiveness, health and safety, risk management, quality assurance, information governance, board assurance and corporate governance.
Richard previously worked in adult learning disability services in Northamptonshire before joining the NHS in Leicestershire in 2005. He has strong interest in patient safety and quality improvement having worked academically as an associate lecturer in healthcare governance at Loughborough University and establishing the academic and healthcare partnership the Leicestershire Innovation, Improvement and Patient Safety (LIIPS) unit hosted by the University of Leicester. Most recently Richard worked at NHS Improvement focussing on quality and performance improvement across a range of NHS Trusts. Richard is a Health foundation Q fellow.
Acting Director of Finance: Anil Pursooth
Anil has a background in financial management and joined the NHS in 1993. Starting out in the mental health sector, he swiftly moved into working within Acute Trusts in Leicestershire. Prior to this post, Anil worked as Deputy Director of Finance at George Eliot in Nuneaton and has worked at various Trusts throughout the UK.Group Chief Digital Information Officer: Andy Callow
Andy became Digital Chief Information Officer with the Trust on April 8th 2019 and brings a wealth of digital experience to the role from a career spanning the public and private sector.
Andy was previously Programme Director for the innovative NHS App at NHS Digital and took the app from inception to availability in the app stores in a little over 12 months.
Prior to that he was the Head of Technology Delivery for the national NHS website NHS.UK, which receives c40m visits each month.
Andy has also held senior positions in the public and private sector, including five years as Head of Information and ICT for Children’s Services at Derbyshire County Council and over three years as a Director for EMPSN (East Midlands Public Sector Network), a network and application services company covering all of the East Midlands.
Director of Strategy: Polly Grimmett
Polly joined the Trust in 2017, and has responsibility for leading the Strategic Development of the Trust. This includes being the executive lead for the redesign and rebuild of the site, including leading the work to rebuild a new Urgent Care facility for the hospital. The role also includes developing the Trust’s relationships with other partners, to ensure patients in North Northamptonshire receive an integrated approach to all there care needs and remain as well as possible.
Alan has worked in the NHS for 43 years in a variety of senior roles and has also run his own consultancy business supporting leadership and improving performance through coaching.
Trevor has extensive experience in the NHS and was Finance Director of Central and Northwest London NHS Foundation Trust.
Chris is the Independent Review Officer for the South Yorkshire and Bassetlaw Accountable Care System Hospital Review and has a strong medical background.
Janet is CEO of the Academy for Healthcare Science, a UK wide organisation which brings together the entire Healthcare Science Profession to improve patient care and advance and promote the Healthcare science workforce.
Lise is a qualified GP who has also worked in public health medicine and in general management within NHS commissioning.
Damien has 23 years experience in the IT service industry.
Lin’s professional background and training is as an educational psychologist and she spent over 20 years in Local Education Authorities working with children and young people, their families, schools and communities in order to improve their life chances.