Our Trust board

Our board now meets as part of a board in common. Members of the public, staff and partners are welcome to join these meetings in person as well as via Teams - the details of the meetings are found on this link:

Board in common meetings

Non-executive directors

• Matthew Swindells
  Chair in common

• Carolyn Downs
  Vice-chair

• Linda Burke
  Non-executive director and senior independent director

• Patricia Gallan
  Non-executive director

• Nick Gash
  Non-executive director

• Steve Gill
  Non-executive director

• Martin Lupton
  Non-executive director

• Vineeta Manchanda 
  Non-executive director

• Simon Morris MBE
  Non-executive director

• Baljit Ubhey OBE
  Non-executive director

Executive directors

• Patricia Wright
  Chief executive

• Jason Seez
  Deputy chief executive, director of strategy and senior responsible officer, hospital redevelopment programme

• Tracey Cotterill
  Interim chief finance officer

• Tina Benson
  Chief operating officer

• Sarah Burton
  Chief nurse

• Dr Alan McGlennan
  Chief medical officer

• Philip Spivey
  Chief people officer (non-voting)

• Steve Wedgwood
  Director of operational estates and facilities (non-voting)

Trust declaration of interests 2024-25.pdf 180KB

Chair

Matthew Swindells, chair

Matthew Swindells has over 30 years’ experience in healthcare. He is the former deputy chief executive and chief operating officer for the NHS in England, currently working as an independent consultant.

Matthew joined the NHS from university as a graduate trainee and worked his way up as an IT director, clinical services manager, chief operating officer and hospital chief executive before joining the Department of Health as senior policy advisor to the Secretary of State for Health and then as the NHS’s first chief information officer.

Matthew is a member of the University Council at Hull University and holds visiting professorships at Surrey University and at Imperial College Institute of Global Health Innovation.Matthew is chair, responsible for 12 hospitals across four NHS trusts in north west London: Chelsea and Westminster Hospital NHS Foundation Trust, The Hillingdon Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust and London North West University Healthcare NHS Trust.

Non-executive directors

Carolyn Downs CB

Carolyn is the vice chair of The Hillingdon Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust and non-executive director of Chelsea and Westminster Hospital NHS Foundation Trust.

She is a recently retired chief executive of the London Borough of Brent and was previously chief executive of the Local Government Association. Prior to that, she was deputy permanent secretary in the Ministry of Justice, chief executive of the Legal Services Commission and chief executive of Shropshire County Council. She has worked in local government in numerous councils for almost 40 years. 

Linda Burke

Linda is a non-executive director of The Hillingdon Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust and Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust. She is also a non-executive director of Frimley Health NHS Foundation Trust, a school governor, and a trustee for Medical Justice Charity. She was a councillor for the London Borough of Ealing from 2018-2022. 

Linda has extensive experience as a senior executive with board experience in health, higher education and not-for-profit organisations most recently as executive director, education and quality at the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists. Previous leadership experience includes roles as pro vice chancellor at the University of Greenwich, head of revalidation at the Nursing and Midwifery Council, head of strategy and development at NHS London and associate dean at St George’s Medical School and Kingston University. Linda is a registered nurse with a specialist qualification in oncology. She has a PhD and a master’s in education and is a qualified coach.

Patricia Gallan

Patricia is a non-executive director of The Hillingdon Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust and Chelsea and Westminster Hospital NHS Foundation Trust. She is also a Non-Executive Director for Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs as well as the Trade Remedies Authority.  She is an external member of the Council of Queen Mary, University of London, chair of governors at an east London infant and junior school and a member of the Drapers’ Multi-Academy Trust.   

A former chief police officer, she began her police career as a graduate entrant in east London rising to Assistant Commissioner, Specialist Crime and Operations of the Metropolitan Police Service, retiring in 2018 with more than 13 years' executive board experience in policing. Patricia was a detective, hostage negotiator and is a qualified barrister. She previously served as Deputy Assistant Commissioner (Specialist Operations – Security and Protection) and also Deputy Assistant Commissioner (Professionalism) in the Met. In addition, she has served in Merseyside Police and the National Crime Squad as a chief police officer as well as completing a secondment to the Home Office.

Nick Gash

Nick is a non-executive director of The Hillingdon Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust and Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust. He has extensive leadership experience, including as chief executive of the National Union of Students and running a successful public affairs consultancy. 

Nick served as chair of West Middlesex University Hospital NHS Trust until its incorporation with Chelsea and Westminster Hospital NHS Foundation Trust in 2015. He continued as a non-executive director for Chelsea and Westminster until 2022, chairing its audit and risk committee. He is also chair of the Royal Society of Medicine’s audit and risk committee.

Steve Gill

Steve is vice chair of the board of Chelsea and Westminster Hospital NHS Foundation Trust and a non-executive director of The Hillingdon Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust.  Steve has had an international executive career in the IT industry, including chief executive roles with Hewlett-Packard in the UK, Korea and China.

He has held various non-executive director roles including advising the UK government on IT in education. Steve qualified as a chartered accountant with PwC in London and has extensive experience in mergers and acquisitions, strategic planning, talent and succession planning, organisational development, risk management and disaster recovery. Steve has been the chair of trustees of Age Concern (Windsor) since January 2018.

Martin Lupton

Martin holds the non-executive board role reserved for an academic and is also a member of the Trust's quality and safety committee. Martin joins us following a period as an associate non-executive director of Chelsea and Westminster Hospital NHS Foundation Trust. Martin is the Vice-Dean (Education) for the faculty of medicine at Imperial College London and leads all of the faculty’s undergraduate and postgraduate activities. He also works as a consultant obstetrician at Chelsea and Westminster Foundation NHS Trust.

Martin has previously been a member and chair of the ethics committee for the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists. He continues to work as a joint clinical lead for the obstetric cardiac service and for maternal medicine at Chelsea and Westminster Hospital, and lectures on the Year 5 obstetrics and gynaecology course on medical ethics.

Vineeta Manchanda

Vineeta is a Non-Executive Director of the Hillingdon Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust where she is the Audit Chair and a Non-Executive Director at Chelsea and Westminster NHS Foundation Trust. She is also a Non-Executive Member and Audit Chair at Bedfordshire, Luton and Milton Keynes Integrated Care Board.

Vineeta has led risk management transformation in non-executive and committee chair roles in the public and voluntary sectors covering the NHS - at Waltham Forest Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) - local authorities, adult and children's social care, government - at States of Jersey - and education.

Simon Morris MBE

Simon is a non-executive director of The Hillingdon Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust and London North West University Healthcare NHS Trust. Simon is a qualified social worker. Until the summer of 2018 Simon was chief executive of Jewish Care, one of the top 100 charities in the UK, for 15 years. Prior to that, Simon spent seven years working for the organisation in a variety of senior positions.

Before joining Jewish Care, Simon spent 12 years working for local government, spending eight years working for the London Borough of Hounslow. His last job with them was as a commissioning manager for adult services.

Baljit Ubhey OBE

Baljit is a non-executive director of The Hillingdon Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust and London North West University Healthcare NHS Trust. Baljit Ubhey joined the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) as a legal trainee in 1992 later qualifying as a prosecutor in London. Baljit has since held many roles including Chief Crown Prosecutor of CPS London.

In January 2017, Baljit was appointed as the Director of Prosecution Policy & Inclusion, leading a policy team within the CPS’ operations directorate whilst leading on equality and inclusion across the service. In September 2019 Baljit became the Director of the Strategy and Policy Directorate.

 

Executive directors

Patricia Wright, chief executive

Patricia Wright joined the Trust in 2020. She was previously Chief Executive of Hounslow and Richmond Community Healthcare NHS Trust for five years. She is an experienced CEO with extensive experience within the acute sector, having been Chief Executive of The Queen Elizabeth Hospital, Chief Executive of Kings Lynn Foundation Trust, Director of Operations at West Middlesex University Hospital and Director of Operations, Epsom and St Helier NHS Trust. She has also been CEO of a Primary Care Trust and a professional body. Before moving into general management, she had a 20 year career as a pharmacist, mostly as a hospital pharmacist, and has maintained her professional registration.

Jason Seez, deputy chief executive, director of strategy and senior responsible officer, hospital redevelopment programme

With a strong background in strategic development, Jason joined the Trust in February 2019 from Barking, Havering and Redbridge University Hospitals NHS Trust where he was Executive Director of Strategy, Transformation and Infrastructure. As well as being deputy chief executive, Jason now leads on the Redevelopment project for Hillingdon Hospital.

Tracey Cotterill, interim chief finance officer

Tracey joined the team as Interim Chief Finance Officer in September 2024. 

Tracey is an experienced qualified accountant and was awarded an MBA in 2012.  She has held a number of board level roles in the NHS during a career in finance spanning over 30 years. As well as working in Acute, Community and Mental Health providers, she has worked in other public sector services and the private sector, both in the UK and Canada, most recently for a software company serving the health sector. Tracey is particularly interested in how digital solutions can support the NHS to meet the growing demands for healthcare and address health inequalities.

In her spare time Tracey enjoys keeping fit, travel and spending time with her grandchildren. She is also an Associate Non-Executive Member at Herefordshire & Worcestershire ICB.

Tina Benson, chief operating officer

Tina's strong leadership experience in the NHS will help to build networks both internally and externally and she will also contribute to broader corporate strategy and the long-term vision of the Trust.

Tina Benson is a qualified radiographer who got her first clinical job at Hillingdon Hospital. This was followed by time at the Royal Free Hospital in a variety of clinical and managerial roles, London North West Hospitals as a manager and Deputy COO, and then Deputy COO, Hospital Director, at West Middlesex Hospital.

Sarah Burton, chief nurse

Sarah has worked in the NHS for the past 30 years, holding a range of senior leadership roles. She previously worked at University College London hospitals, where she was deputy chief nurse, and previously worked in senior roles at Ashford and St Peter’s Hospitals.

Sarah has a strong background in quality and safety along with extensive operational experience and collaborative system leadership. She has a degree in cancer nursing, a master’s degree in strategic clinical leadership and values a culture of learning.  

Dr Alan McGlennan, chief medical officer

Alan joined us from Royal Free London NHS Foundation Trust, where he was medical director and CEO of Chase Farm Hospital.

He has extensive leadership experience, having previously worked as a chief clinical information officer, as well as a medical director and chief executive. He has also spent more than 16 years working as a consultant at The Royal Free NHS Foundation Trust, with obstetric anaesthesia as a sub-specialty.

Philip Spivey, chief people officer

Phil joined us from London North West University Healthcare NHS Trust where he was the deputy chief people officer for seven years and has recently led workstreams within the Acute Collaborative Partnership. Phil has worked in the NHS for over 25 years and has a broad range of experience in workforce issues having worked in a number of Trusts as well as at regional and national level.

Steve Wedgwood, director of operational estates and facilities 

Steve joined the Trust in 2011 to lead and modernise the Facilities team, following a number of senior leadership roles in health authorities, trusts and at a national level with the National Patient Safety Agency.  Prior to joining our Trust, Steve was deputy director of estates and facilities at Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells NHS Trust.