I was a former Police Officer and enjoyed a varied career with one of my specialisms/passions being hostage and crisis negotiation which took me, not only all over Scotland, but also to various parts of the world few of which if any would appear on your normal tourist trail.
I was a previous Divisional Commander of Police Scotland’s Forth Valley Division, a role that I thoroughly enjoyed and loved working across the area especially the mixture of having to deliver a service between rural and urban areas. Partnership working was crucial to successful delivery and I enjoyed strong working relationships with NHS Forth Valley, both local HSCPs and the three local authorities that form the Forth Valley area.
As a consequence, when the opportunity came up to join the Health Board as a Non-Executive member, I jumped at the chance as it allowed me to continue my association with Forth Valley.
As well as being on the main NHS Forth Valley Board, I am Vice-Chair of the Staff Governance Committee, a member of both HSCPs, Vice Chair of Falkirk’s IJB and both a member and Vice Chair of Falkirk’s Clinical Care Governance Committee. I am also a member of the Finance Committee of the Clacks and Stirling HSCP.
I value the work that I do with the health board because I cherish our NHS to me it is without doubt the epitome of fairness and equality in the delivery of the most important of public services. It gives me great pleasure to be associated with a wide range of individuals who strive every day to deliver the best service that they can to local residents and visitors.
I have learned much about the sheer complexity of health care delivery to a population of 300,000 people everything from GP services to Prison Health Care, until joining the Board I truly did not grasp this complexity. However, within this vast and complex system we have a unique opportunity to improve the health of our local population.
In addition, as a result of significant pressures on service delivery, I have found my personal resilience to be truly tested, and I can only imagine how much effort goes in each day from all Forth Valley staff sometimes in the face of seemingly overwhelming odds. I therefore have the utmost admiration for our staff who strive every day to deliver the best health service possible.
I have a variety of interests including golf, yoga and travel. I am also a Non-Executive director with NHS Golden Jubilee and the Risk Management Authority. I also act as volunteer chair of Lifelink a Glasgow based third sector organisation who provide a health and wellbeing service especially to areas of multiple social deprivation.
I am a passionate advocate of workplace wellbeing services and I work with a number of organisations both private and public to encourage them to look after the physical and mental wellbeing of their staff.
I am acutely aware of how difficult working in the NHS is at the moment as there are significant financial pressures amongst unprecedented demand. We therefore need to do our best to reform and be agile in our delivery but most of all we need to look after one another in order to be able deliver the best service that we can within the challenging environment that we currently operate in.
