LWH Council of Governors

I have lived in Liverpool all my life and have worked for Royal Mail for more than 30 years. I am a trade union official, a member of the Labour Party and studied at the University of Liverpool. I feel these years of working and meeting ordinary people, will help me give them a voice in the workings of the hospital and the service it provides.

I am passionate about delivering promises and effective oversight. What is the point of not delivering for people? Broken promises destroy trust. Effective oversight ensures realistic goals.

More information coming soon.

More information coming soon.

Information to follow.

I have a BA in Criminology and Sociology and an MA in Social Work. I’ve worked in Adult Social Care in Liverpool for many years including in a hospital setting. I work closely with partners and stakeholders including the Care Quality Commission, NHS organisations and voluntary services.

I’m a qualified Best Interests Assessor and complete Deprivation of Liberty Safeguards assessments for those deprived of their liberty in hospital or care home settings.

I’m passionate about people being treated equally and receiving the same high standard of care with no exceptions. I’m keen to hear the views of patients and support them to contribute to the development of the Trust.

I intend to use my experience to contribute towards ensuring that the LWH continue to provide and maintain high standards of healthcare.

I am an academic at the School of Law & Social Justice, University of Liverpool where I am a member of the Research Cluster on Law & Non-Communicable Diseases and also Law, Technology and Society. My research interests include access to medicines, intellectual property law and public health law.

I have experience serving on the UoL Central University Research Ethics Committee for over 7 years. I serve on the European Public Health Association’s Advisory Working Group on Access to Medicines since early 2023. Previously, I was on the Senate at two UK universities and also on the governing board at secondary school with academy status.

I am a retired registered nurse/midwife. I worked within the NHS for 33 years, initially at Walton Hospital, then Fazakerley Hospital at the maternity unit, and following the amalgamation of Trusts, Liverpool Women’s Hospital, working within both hospital and community settings. Following my retirement, I then worked for five years providing community homecare. My professional career has spanned from the provision of nursing care to undertaking specialist roles, providing care to vulnerable groups, including being Head of Safeguarding Children, Drugs and Alcohol addictions, infant feeding, parent education, domestic violence, and women with blood-bourne viruses, such as HIV. Within my specialist roles I provided staff training, policies and procedures and multidisciplinary co-ordination of care. I strived to promote high standards of care to mothers, babies, and their families, which I know lies at the very ethos of Liverpool Women’s.

In my personal life, I have three children, am a grandmother to five and a Great-Grandmother to one, whom I treasure and enjoy spending as much time as possible with. I have lived all of my life on Merseyside, believing the community voice being heard makes it a better place to be. 

Previous experience as a governor at Birkdale High School.

Being part of the Women's Hospital by taking part in making decisions concerning various issues is very stimulating.

I am passionate about equality. I respect the value and differences we can all make to the patient experience.

More information coming soon.

More information coming soon.

I have worked for the NHS for 39 years. I trained as an RGN, RSCN at Alder Hey between 1983-1987 and qualified as a Midwife at Liverpool Maternity Hospital in 1989. In 2005 I completed a Diploma of Health at Edge Hill University and then gained the NIPE qualification in 2016 at LJMU. I have worked at Liverpool Women’s since it opened back in 1995. I have worked across all areas of the Maternity services, with my last ten years as a Community Midwife. I always endeavour to give the highest standards care to our families. I have a passion for supporting student and newly qualified midwives, Maternity support workers and medical students to develop their skills and knowledge, always encouraging them to provide safe care and a great experience for our families

I am immensely proud of the service we provide and keen to continue to develop for the families of Liverpool in the future.

I have been a registered nurse since January 2001 and over the past 22 years I have worked across acute, community and commissioning organisations, initially starting my career at Liverpool Women’s Hospital where I worked on the gynaecology ward. I returned to Liverpool Women’s University Hospital in February 2023, initially as the Assistant Director Nursing and Midwifery to support the corporate nursing agenda and then more recently I was successful in gaining the Head of Safeguarding position. I gained my first position in the safeguarding arena in 2010,and soon realised that I could have a greater impact on patient care and their journey through the health system by impacting policy, process and procedure that would influence and empower front line practice.

I am passionate about being a voice for those who are unable to advocate for themselves and always ask would the level of care being given be good enough for my own family.  I always encourage openness and honesty when something does not go to plan and learning from incidents is essential.

More information to follow.

More information to follow.

Nichola began her career in the NHS as a Medical Secretary and then moved to the University of Liverpool in 2002. Since then she has acquired a vast range of  leadership experience, and is now Director of Operations in the Faculty of Health & Life Sciences. She has a substantial operational portfolio, facilitating the development and delivery of teaching and research across the Faculty. As part of her professional development, Nichola has completed training in accountancy, business management and leadership and is a Member of the Association of Higher Education Professionals.  She has also completed the prestigious Women’s Leadership Programme at Harvard Business School.  As well as her external role at the Liverpool Women’s University Hospital, Nichola is also on the Board of Trustees at Wirral Hospice St Johns.

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Midwifery is my second career – previously I have trained and worked in nature conservation, holding a wide variety of roles, but my personal experience of childbearing with my first child led me to my midwifery training which I undertook at Manchester University.   Following successful completion of my degree I worked in Manchester and rotated through all areas of clinical midwifery practice before taking up a senior post as a specialist midwife at LWH – focussing on vulnerable women and families and public health.   I became the team leader for a group of specialist midwives, before moving on to take up a post as senior midwifery lecturer at Liverpool John Moores University, where I held a variety of roles.

During this time I also gained some international experience and for 3 years co-led and led student nurse and midwife elective experiences to Uganda.   In 2021 an opportunity arose to become Associate Head of Midwifery Education and fulfil the statutory role of Lead Midwife for Education (LME) at Edge Hill University, and I then was promoted to my current post as Head of Women’s and Children’s Health in the same year.   I manage a department which spans all education and programmes covering Child Nursing and midwifery, including CPD.  

I am also a part time PhD student at LJMU – currently writing up my thesis on unknown childbearing, and have recently had book chapter published on communication in public health midwifery, and am involved in some smaller research projects.   I am involved in various committees within School, Faculty and Institution including Fitness to Practice, Employability, validation of Programmes and Quality and have recently completed the EHU First Ascent leadership course. I am married to Paul, and have two children one of whom is a mental health nurse educator, and my other child who is volunteering with our local church.

I’ve spent the last decade working in Liverpool’s health and social care sector, crossing paths, building partnerships, and getting to know a wide variety of grassroots, third sector and public sector organisations. These days I work directly with a range of charity clients; I also work with a local public service redesign organisation. I spend my days helping the third sector, NHS organisations and Local Authorities to work together - helping them to focus on the needs and wants of the people receiving their support. I believe the third sector has a huge role to play in the delivery of great NHS services, we just need to get better at joining things up and get more creative when we’re thinking about our patient journeys. I know that Liverpool Women’s is an amazing hospital with a team who want great things for the women they serve and I’m excited to support the Board and staff team to think more about the work these sectors do together.

The focus of LWH’s strategy is to ‘ensure the health needs of the population served by the Trust are full considered’. I truly believe that listening to people’s challenges, thoughts and ideas is key, not only to improve quality but also to make limited funds have the biggest impact. So often health and care services are built that aren’t quite right for the person at the end of them, I’m passionate about working with the organisations embedded in these communities (those who spend their days listening to the women who may become or who already are our patients) to understand how our services are experienced by local women, and what we can do to make those experiences even better.

I've worked in General Practice for over 30 years with the majority of my career being the Management Partner in Brownlow Health, a large inner city group of practices in Liverpool.  I have an interest in strategic healthcare management and have sat on many boards, including Liverpool Clinical Commissioning Group. More recently I have taken on an additional role as non-clinical Director at Central Liverpool Primary Care Network and one of my lead areas is developing the Women’s Health Hub. I have a Masters in Business Administration.