WWL Board of Directors
Our Board of Directors operates according to the highest corporate governance standards. It is a unitary board and has a wide range of skills and experience. The non-executive directors have wide-ranging expertise and experience, including backgrounds in finance, audit, primary care and education. The board considers that it is balanced and complete in its composition, and appropriate to the requirements of the organisation.
- Upcoming Meetings
Upcoming Board of Directors' Meetings
Please note that the start time of each meeting is subject to change. This will be updated on the website in advance of the meetings.
Once the agenda are available they will be published under the 2025 meeting section.
04 June 2025, 1.15pm to 4,15pm
06 August 2025, 1.15pm to 4,15pm
01 October, 2025, 1.15pm to 4,15pm
03 December 2025, 1.15pm to 4,15pm
- Chair and Chief Executive
Mary Fleming
Chief Executive
Contact: Christine Swann – 01942 82 2196
Mary joined the Trust in January 2008 as Operational lead within the Division of Surgery. She became a member of the Board in March 2016 as the Chief Operating Officer and was appointed as the Trust’s Deputy Chief Executive in April 2021. Mary was appointed WWL's Chief Executive in March 2024.
Mary worked in the private sector before moving into healthcare and has worked in acute provider organisations across Greater Manchester and Yorkshire. Her experience in working across both the private and public sector brings a strong focus on ensuring services are organised around the needs of the patient with the goal of improving cost and quality. WWL is renowned for its performance against the NHS Constitution Standards, a reflection of staff’s commitment to delivering the very best care possible.
Mary joined the flagship Nye Bevan Aspiring Director Leaders’ Programme and successfully completed the Executive Health Care Leadership Programme with the NHS Leadership Academy. She has studied Social History and Sociology and has a PGC in Managing Health and Social Care.
Qualifications:
PGC in Health and Social Care Management
Executive Healthcare Leadership ProgrammeMark Jones
Chair
Contact: Christine Swann – 01942 82 2196
Mark has a long-standing and respected international and domestic career in the pharmaceutical industry, and since retiring worked for seven years as a Non-Executive Director at Liverpool Heart and Chest Hospital NHS Foundation Trust (LHCH) sitting on all the assurance committees and chairing the People.
People, organisational culture and values are central to Mark’s approach, and during his time at LHCH he worked closely with hospital executives and management at LHCH, to support their work on developing strategies, business cases and the planned delivery of the National People Plan, with a particular focus on addressing equality and diversity challenges.
Mark has worked as Company President for national companies in Germany, Canada and the UK, later serving as Regional Vice President for Southern Europe, reporting to the main board of AstraZeneca. He was also a board member at the Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry (ABPI) and Chair of Quality, Innovation, Productivity and Programme (QIPP) committee, representing the industry in discussions on this topic with the NHS.
During his time in Canada, Mark was a Non-Executive Director of the Kids Brain Health Board of Canada and worked with the Canadian government to help launch a charitable foundation for children’s mental health.
In his current role as Chair at Wrightington, Wigan and Leigh Foundation Trust Mark has focussed on further developing system working with local partners as the way forward to improve the health and wellbeing of the community the trust serves. Mark, on behalf of the GM Chairs group, is working with the NW Leadership Academy in building a case study approach to encourage NEDs to collectively think about the role they play as part of real-life scenarios, to discuss and explore the key issues and to ensure collective learning from the experience.
- Executive Directors
Prof. Sanjay Arya
Medical Director/ Consultant Interventional Cardiologist
Dr Sanjay Arya joined the Trust in November 2000 as a Consultant Interventional Cardiologist, providing a high quality, evidence based and patient focussed comprehensive cardiac service. Sanjay’s areas of interest are coronary artery disease, coronary intervention, heart failure, arrhythmia, syncope and cardiac assessment for non-cardiac surgery and professional footballers.
Dr Arya is a keen teacher, dedicated to the teaching and training of doctors and other healthcare professionals and was the Foundation Programme Director for seven years during which he raised the profile of doctor teaching and training at WWL. Dr Arya holds the position of Examiner for the Royal College of Physicians and at Manchester Medical School. He is Honorary Senior Lecturer at the University of Central Lancashire, Edge Hill University and the University of Liverpool and has published several publications, delivered talks throughout the country. Dr Arya is an active member of various cardiovascular organisations which aim to reduce the incidence and improve the management of cardiovascular disease.
Dr Arya has held the position of Medical Director for the Medicine Division since 2012. During this period he ensured high-quality care was provide for patients through various quality initiatives and via the implementation of 7 day working in the Trust. Currently the Chair of the Emergency and Acute Medicine Group for the North West Sector under the Healthier Together initiative Dr Arya is working towards the provision of high quality standardised care across Bolton, Wigan and Salford hospitals. Dr Arya was the Chair of the North West England Heart Failure group during which he ensured patients with heart failure received high-quality care. Sanjay is the Vice Chairman of the British International Doctors Association, UK and was the Editor of the Journal of BIDA for six years until December 2016.
Working as Interim Joint Medical Director since August 2016, before being appointed to the substantive post of Medical Director in April 2017, Dr Arya’s immediate priority would be to improve staff morale, provide safe, effective care to his patients and work towards making WWL a financially viable Trust.
Qualifications:
MBBS (Hons), FRCP (London), FRCP (Glasgow)Richard Mundon
Deputy CEO / Director of Strategy and Planning
Richard is a very experienced public servant spending the majority of his career in the health sector. He has a degree in biological sciences and is a qualified accountant. He spent 25 years in the Department of Health joining in 1986 and working in a wide variety of roles in Birmingham, London and Leeds across a range of policy, management and corporate disciplines.
Richard has worked with Ministers, had multi billion pound budget responsibilities, led large change programmes, developed performance management and planning regimes and was head of profession for programme and project management. Amongst his many roles, he can list Project Manager on the 2000 NHS Plan and Director of Operations.
Richard joined the Trust in 2012 where he led projects on private patients, temporary staffing, back office functions and occupational health commercialisation. He became Acting Director of Strategy and Planning in December 2014 before being appointed as Director of Strategy and Planning in August 2015.
Qualifications:
BSc (Hons) Biological Sciences
ACMA CGMATabitha Gardner
Chief Finance Officer
Tabitha joined the Trust as Chief Finance Officer in March 2023 and brings a vast amount of knowledge and experience to the role having worked in NHS finance at various different Trusts in the North West.
From 2019, Tabitha held the role of Director of Finance at the Rochdale Care Organisation, part of the Northern Care Alliance NHS Foundation Trust (NCA), where she delivered significant investment into the organisation as part of the Rochdale elective surgical offer. Prior to this, Tabitha spent eight years working as the Deputy Director of Finance for the North West branch of NHS England and during this time she led the financial management for Specialised Services which delivers numerous rare and complex services.
She has also held finance leadership roles at Wirral NHS Foundation Trust, The Countess of Chester NHS Foundation Trust and spent some time outside the NHS working at KPMG
Kevin Parker-Evans
Chief Nursing Officer
Kevin joined the Trust as Interim Chief Nurse in January 2024 from Tameside and Glossop Integrated Care NHS Foundation Trust where he was Deputy Chief Nurse from 2020, securing the position of Chief Nursing Officer in June 2024. Kevin is a registered adult nurse and has had several clinical, operational, and senior leadership roles within his 20-year nursing career, and completed an MBA in 2023, he is also Chartered Manager (CMgr). Kevin has a passion to develop Nursing, Midwifery and AHP teams to be able to lead on the delivery of excellent patient and service user care, developing and utilising technology to support the care we deliver to release clinical teams ‘time to care’ to the bedside.
Qualifications
RN DIP HE (Registered Adult Nurse)
MBA
CMgr
FCIMSarah Brennan
Chief Operating Officer
Sarah joined the Trust as Chief Operating Officer in September 2024 and was previously the Chief Operating Officer at Bridgewater Community Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust. Prior to this, she held roles in Strategic Delivery, Operations and Medicines Management with Bridgewater.
A Pharmacist by background, Sarah has worked in several settings including community, hospital, industry and the military, spending periods of her career working in both Germany and Guernsey.
Sarah is passionate about improving patient care and growing and developing teams to facilitate this. She has a particular interest in children’s services and the links with public health and addressing health inequalities.
Juliette Tait
Chief People Officer
Juliette (Jules), joined the Trust as Chief People Officer in August 2023.
Most recently, Juliette, worked at Greater Manchester Mental Health NHS Foundation Trust (GMMH), undertaking a variety of roles in Human Resources (HR) and Organisational Development (OD). In 2019, Juliette was the Deputy Director of HR & OD before taking on the role of Executive Director of Human Resources.
Beyond this, Juliette is proud of her extensive and varied career in the people profession, having gained experience in leading teams that support apprenticeship delivery, workforce development and other specialist areas, as well as a significant period with Greater Manchester Police.
Above all, Juliette is passionate about people and works hard to raise the voice of staff to help create the best working environment possible, ensuring people feel well equipped to deliver safe and compassionate care to our patients.
Juliette started her career journey as an Apprentice and, over the years, has completed a range of professional qualifications, most recently being awarded Chartered Member status of the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development.
Anne-Marie Miller
Director of Communications and Stakeholder Engagement
Anne-Marie has 15 years’ experience in senior communications and engagement roles at Acute and Community NHS Provider organisations across North West England. During this time, she led the complex communications and engagement programme for the merger of University Hospital of South Manchester NHS Foundation Trust (UHSM) and Central Manchester University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust (CMFT) to create Manchester University NHS Foundation Trust (MFT), the largest Foundation Trust in the country.
Prior to joining the NHS, Anne-Marie held stakeholder engagement roles at UNITE Group Plc and was Vice-President of Liverpool Student’s Union. Anne-Marie also holds an Executive Award in Health Care Leadership following the completion of the Nye Bevan programme and is a Member of the Chartered Institute of Public Relations.
Qualifications:
DipHE Consumer Studies
PG Dip Public Relations
Executive Award in Health Care LeadershipContact
To contact any director, please email company.secretary@wwl.nhs.uk
- Non-Executive Directors
Lady Rhona Bradley DL
.png)
Contact: Company Secretary - 01942 82 2027
Rhona has 25 years’ experience in the criminal justice system with the National Probation Service in Greater Manchester and Cheshire and led the establishment of multi-agency youth offending services in Halton and Warrington Borough Councils. She has held a number of roles in social services, including director roles in both adult and children’s services. Currently Chief Executive of Addiction Dependency Services, Rhona was appointed a Deputy Lieutenant for Greater Manchester in 2010.
Clare Austin
.png)
Contact: Company Secretary - 01942 82 2027
Clare is the Associate Dean for Research and Innovation and the Director of Medical Education at Edge Hill University as well as the Chair of the Management Group of the Postgraduate Medical Institute. A Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy, Clare holds a BSc and PhD in Pharmacology and has been involved in medical education for many years. She is particularly interested in the use of reflective learning in personal and professional development.
Francine Thorpe Contact: Company Secretary - 01942 82 2027
Francine has had a long career in the NHS; her most recent post was Director of Quality and Innovation at NHS Salford Clinical Commissioning Group. As well as working as a commissioner, she has held senior leadership roles within acute hospitals, primary care and community services. Francine has a clinical background as a physiotherapist and during her career worked as a Physiotherapy Advisor to the Lead Allied Health Professional at the Department of Health. Over the last few years she has been involved in the development of integrated health and social care across the Salford locality and led a large quality improvement programme focused on medication safety, safer care homes and safer handover across care settings. With a keen interest in healthcare quality, safety improvement and safeguarding, Francine has also recently been appointed as an Independent Chair for one of the Greater Manchester Safeguarding Adults Boards.
Julie Gill
Contact: Company Secretary - 01942 82 2027
Julie has worked in senior roles across the public sector, including local government, housing, regeneration, policing and education and is currently a Chief Officer at Cheshire Constabulary, taking the lead on Business Services for Cheshire Police as part of the Chief Constable’s leadership team.
Julie has many years of experience at board level covering finance, commercial and property management, change and digital strategy and HR workforce planning, across the various roles. Prior to working with the police, she has held Director of Resources roles at Cheshire West and Stoke councils, as well as wide ranging roles within the education sector and a national housing provider.Mary Moore RN
Contact: Company Secretary - 01942 82 2027
Mary is a retired Executive Chief Nurse having spent 44 years on an NHS career trajectory from Bedside to Board. Mary’s experience was primarily in acute settings until commencing national improvement roles with the Department of Health and Social Care from 2000 – 2010. Returning to NHS acute and commissioning organisations in her executive roles in recent years.
Mary has chosen to enthusiastically continue with leadership roles post-retirement in Non-Executive and Interim Executive roles and is delighted to join the WWL family.
Mary is currently in her second term as a Clinical Non-Executive Director and Maternity Champion at NHS Stockport FT, a role that will compliment her appointment to WWL being part of the wider Greater Manchester health and care system.Simon Holden
Contact: Company Secretary - 01942 82 2027
Simon was previously the Chief Finance Officer, and Deputy Chief Executive, for the Countess of Chester NHS Foundation Trust. He has held many senior posts within the NHS, including being the first Chief Executive of NHS Property Services, a national organisation, based in London and responsible to the Department of Health, with over 4,000 buildings, and employing 3,000 people, from its establishment in 2012, up until 2015.
Simon is a passionate supporter of the NHS, having originally joined as an Apprentice at Blackpool Victoria Hospital, aged 18, and has over 40 years NHS finance experience. He has subsequently mainly undertaken a number of Finance Director roles both in Commissioning and Provider organisations.
In addition, Simon has also undertaken a number of Non-Executive roles including Treasurer of Disability Positive (2004 to 2022), and Chairman of Pear Tree Primary Academy School (2005 to present). Simon is a Fellow of the Chartered Association of Certified Accountants (FCCA), and also a Fellow of the Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors (FRICS).
He joined Wrightington, Wigan and Leigh on 1 July 2024, and is Chair of the Audit Committee, which also includes responsibility for Counter Fraud initiatives, succeeding Ian Haythornthwaite.Mark Wilkinson
Contact: Company Secretary - 01942 82 2027
Mark is an accomplished leader with extensive experience in healthcare, housing, and education sectors. Currently the Cheshire East Place Director, Mark oversees health integration to enhance care across the Cheshire and Merseyside region. His governance roles include Non-Executive Director positions with Mastercall Healthcare and Bolton at Home, and Edge Hill University, where he drives strategic and patient/student centred improvements. Previously Mark has held senior NHS roles, such as Executive Director of Planning and Performance at Betsi Cadwaladr Health Board as well as commissioning Chief Executive roles, managing major budgets, performance, and strategic transformations and his career is marked by a commitment to innovation, community impact, and operational excellence. Born and raised in Stockport, Mark now lives near Ormskirk and is delighted to have secured this opportunity at his local NHS organisation helping to shape the services he and his family depend on.
- Board Papers 2025
Detailed below are the Board of Directors agendas and supporting documents for meetings during 2024
The majority of our reports are in PDF format unless otherwise stated. You will need Adobe Acrobat Reader installed on your PC to view these documents.From June 24 onwards we are now able to share our Board papers on this website, for any papers from October 2023 to April 2024 please contact the Company Secreatry Team on the below e-mail address and they shall arrange a copy of the papers to be shared with you.
Although we have now returned to holding meetings in person, occasionally it may be necessary to hold some of our meetings via videoconference. We will still publish all agendas on this website along with a meeting link to allow you to join virtually. We appreciate your understanding on this matter. If you would like to receive a copy of the meeting papers, require any further information, or wish to attend the meeting please email Company.Secretary@wwl.nhs.uk
05 February 2025, 1.30pm to 4.15pm - Due to works taking place this meeting is due to be held off site and a Teams link will be provided for Members of the Public who wish to observe the meeting. The Teams link will be uploaded onto the website the day before the meeting is due to take place.
02 April 2025, 2.00pm to 4.15pm
- Board Papers 2024
Detailed below are the Board of Directors agendas and supporting documents for meetings during 2024
The majority of our reports are in PDF format unless otherwise stated. You will need Adobe Acrobat Reader installed on your PC to view these documents.From June 24 onwards we are now able to share our Board papers on this website, for any papers from October 2023 to April 2024 please contact the Company Secreatry Team on the below e-mail address and they shall arrange a copy of the papers to be shared with you.
Although we have now returned to holding meetings in person, occasionally it may be necessary to hold some of our meetings via videoconference. We will still publish all agendas on this website along with a meeting link to allow you to join virtually. We appreciate your understanding on this matter. If you would like to receive a copy of the meeting papers, require any further information, or wish to attend the meeting please email Company.Secretary@wwl.nhs.uk
07 Febraury 2024 - 2.00pm to 4.15pm
03 April 2024 - 2.00pm to 4.15pm
05 June 2024 - 2.15pm to 4.15pm
07 August 2024 - 2.00pm to 4.15pm
02 October 2024 - 2.30pm to 4.15 pm
04 December 2024 - 2.20pm to 4.15pm
- Board Papers 2023
Detailed below are the Board of Directors agendas and supporting documents for meetings during 2023.
The majority of our reports are in PDF format unless otherwise stated. You will need Adobe Acrobat Reader installed on your PC to view these documents. From October onwards if you would like a copy of the meeting papers then plese contact the Company Secretary team on the below e-mail address and they shall arrange a copy of the papers to be shared with you.Although we have now returned to holding meetings in person, occasionally it me be necessary to hold some of our meetings via videoconference. We will still publish all agendas on this website along with a meeting link to allow you to join virtually. We appreciate your understanding on this matter. If you would like to receive a copy of the meeting papers, require any further information, or wish to attend the meeting please email Company.Secretary@wwl.nhs.uk
01 February 2023 - This meeting will be taking place via Microsoft Teams Video conferencing
05 April 2023 - 1.30pm
07 June 2023 - 2pm
02 August 2023 -1.45pm
04 October 2023 - 1.15pm
06 December 2023 - 1.45pm
- Board Papers 2022
Detailed below are the Board of Directors agendas and supporting documents for meetings during 2022.
Agenda's and other key reports are available in a wide variety of formats to meet local user needs (e.g. different languages, large print, speaking version). We appreciate your comments on how we can further improve our reports.
The majority are in PDF format unless otherwise stated. You will need Adobe Acrobat Reader installed on your PC to view these documents.As part of the plans in place to keep our staff and members of the public safe, our board meetings may be held by videoconference. We will still publish all papers on this website along with a meeting link to allow you to join virtually should you wish to. We appreciate your understanding on this matter. If you would like any further information, please email Company.Secretary@wwl.nhs.uk
02 February 2022 at 1:15pm
30 March 2022 at 1pm
06 April 2022 at 1:15pm
08 June 2022 at 1:30pm
03 August 2022 at 1:15pm - Please note this meeting will be held via Microsoft Teams
05 October 2022 at 1:30pm
07 December 2022 at 2pm