Meet The Team

Melvyn Ingleson

Keen to make a difference to improving the health & wellbeing of individuals and families locally, Melvyn joined us as our Chair on April 1^st 2023. He serves as a non-executive director of Spectrum Community Health, a major social enterprise, a provider of prison health care and other health services across the North of England, based in Wakefield. He is a trustee of The Cellar Trust, a fast growing mental health charity in Bradford. He is also a school governor, the Heights Federation in Kirklees.

Melvyn  enjoyed many years running his own advisory firm from Glasgow, serving as an interface between private companies in many different sectors who needed to build relationships or sell services to government or the UK public sector. He retired in 2019, returning to Yorkshire.

He has a long standing professional interest in partnership working, including good governance,  and in organisational transformation, enabled by digital technologies. His personal interests include theatre, cinema, live music of all kinds, gardening, the outdoors and local heritage.

Nick Whittingham

Nick is Chief Executive of Kirklees Citizens Advice & Law Centre, one of the organisations which founded Healthwatch Kirklees, and has been a Healthwatch Kirklees trustee and Treasurer since 2015.

Nick is an equality lawyer with a strong focus on enforcing the rights of people with disabilities and other protected characteristics. This extends to ensuring equity in access to and quality of service from our health and social care services. Nick also has direct experience of supporting NHS complaints work.

Nick brings to the Board experience of running a large local charity as well as Board experience across a range of national and local charity, community and environmental organisations.

His personal interests include environmental activism, supporting community events, live music and festivals.

Suzi Henderson

Suzi has worked in the advocacy sector for 20 years, starting her career in Kirklees as a mental health advocate. Prior to this, she trained as a social worker and worked in domestic abuse services.  She is now the Chief Executive Officer of Cloverleaf Advocacy, a charity working across the North of England, with services in Calderdale and Kirklees. She is passionate about the voices, rights and choices of people drawing on health and social care services and has a strong commitment to inclusion for all. She is also a trustee for a local scouting group, and enjoys spending time with her two sons and dog (preferably at the coast!)

Yasmeen Sharif

Rachel Horner

Tony Wilkinson

Tony has spent his career in retail pharmacy with Boots, an opportunity from his volunteer role with CAB created an enthusiasm for
public involvement within the NHS. This continued when he retired to Halifax, and led to his current Trustee activity with Healthwatch.

Developing an understanding of the Charity world and the labyrinth of the NHS and of Social Care Services has been a satisfying  challenge for Tony. His admiration for the NHS and social care, from both a professional and family perspective has steadily increased. 

Tony finds that facilitating public involvement, in even the smallest way, to achieve the best outcomes is why he continues volunteering his time. 

Tony is also a Governor of the local hospital Trust, a Patient Panel member of the local GP practice, a bridge player, DIY enthusiast and proud relative of some grand children.

He would encourage others to “dip a toe in and add their voice”!

Mark Fennelly

Mark has always had an interest in health and wellbeing starting as a hospital volunteer as part of the Duke of Edinburgh Awards whilst a 6^th form student which led to him becoming a Nurse for People with Learning Disabilities for the last 40 years. Mark has a degree in Healthcare Management.

Mark spent 10 years in the NHS and in varying roles in the charity sector in such as Mental Health, Substance Misuse, Homeless services to Learning Disabilities and Shared Lives.

Mark voluntarily chairs the local patient’s group at his GP surgery.

Mark is an advocate of improved health outcomes for men who he feels are often unrepresented and don’t easily engage in healthcare services for a number of reasons.

Mark became a trustee at Healthwatch when he went part time as he wanted to help improve the health outcomes of other people. Mark has had good and not so good experiences of healthcare. He wanted to make a positive difference to the wellbeing of others who often struggle to engage with the complex healthcare system or who need help when things go wrong.

Mark enjoys gardening, classic cars, technology and gadgets, music, exercise, civic pride and is an active member of Halifax Civic Trust where he is a volunteer and trustee. Mark really enjoys traveling and has been fortunate to travel to many parts of the world and will always be planning his next adventure.

Dawn Wood

As a trustee at Healthwatch, Dawn wants to use her skills, knowledge and experience to help reduce barriers for local people when  accessing health and social care services by supporting our skilled teams with strategic aims and by challenging services to improve.

Dawn has worked in various positions in social care over the last 25 years. She has enjoyed roles such as a care assistant and memory support worker for people with dementia working for Age Concern & BUPA, then for Kirklees Council as a Gateway Worker moving on to managing a cluster of services in the Early Intervention & Prevention portfolio. Dawn then became a registered manager for a social enterprise. This is where she developed a large newly built Extra Care Scheme, which was an exciting, challenging and rewarding experience.

Dawn now works at Mencap, she love the diversity of her job and directly improving the quality of Mencap services to increase people’s health, well-being and happiness. As the Head of Support Services, Dawn relishes the direct contact she has with lots of vibrant people whilst implementing strategies and projects with them. Mencap is truly a person centred organisation which is at the core of her values.

When Dawn is at home, she relaxes by nurturing my organic vegetable allotment, cooking and eating the produce and she enjoys travelling abroad.

Lisa Hodgson

Lisa has been in various roles in her 20-year career with Kirklees Council including safeguarding and currently housing-related policy and practice improvement. Lisa became involved with Healthwatch Kirklees in 2014 as a volunteer and then formally took up a position on the Board as a Community Representative Trustee in July 2021.  Part of her role on the Board is to ensure our fantastic volunteers are represented and recognised as they remain intrinsic to our operations.

Lisa is passionate about ensuring health and social care providers put themselves in their service users’ shoes when designing and delivering services.  Local people deserve to receive the services they need, and their views should always shape and improve those services.  Having family members with a degenerative disabilities and long-term health conditions, as well as having an unpaid caring role, Lisa is aware of how tiring it can be to manage day-to-day health issues.  She is therefore keen that Healthwatch Kirklees and Calderdale supports providers to make their systems, communications, and processes less stressful and simpler to navigate wherever possible. 

Often, conversations take place locally that focus on the issues and concerns about health and social care, however, there are pockets of really good, person-centred work being undertaken which Lisa welcomes and is keen to ensure good practice is shared.

Lisa has a keen professional interest in the links between housing and health as well as the application of behavioural sciences.  Her personal interests include watching all sports, reading historical murder mysteries, and travel (particularly on cruises and to places of interest in the UK).

Lynne Keady

Enter and View Authorised
Representative

I worked in the Civil Service for 34 years until 2007. Since then, I have undertaken care and support work with older and disabled clients and also a hospital ward clerk role.

Since I retired from paid employment, I have been a volunteer with a number of local community service organisations – including South West Yorkshire Partnership NHS Foundation Trust (Mental Health Services) and several voluntary sector providers – with these roles including befriending activities and volunteering with young people with intellectual disabilities, in relation to travel training.

I have been a Healthwatch volunteer team member since 2014 and I always welcome the opportunity to work in partnership with our local health and social care providers – in order to facilitate the identification and sharing of benchmark best practice whilst also highlighting instances where services could be improved – together with ideas relating to how that might be achieved. I feel that it is important to enable members of our local community to make a positive contribution as regards supporting local providers to aspire to the delivery of excellence by ensuring that services are the best that they can be with the resources that are available.

Lisa Hodgson

Enter and View Authorised Representative

I have been a Healthwatch Kirklees volunteer since 2014 and still find this hugely rewarding. Despite my busy paid role with the local authority, and my unpaid role as a carer, I continue to fit my volunteer work in as much as I can, when I can, because I see how much of a difference it can make. I became a volunteer to support local people to have a voice and share their experiences and I’m still really passionate about giving people the opportunity to do this. I also wanted to share my knowledge and skills (and learn some new ones) as well as help to share good practice and make improvements to services. When I first started, I was supporting the Enter and View visits, but as time has progressed I’ve also been involved in a variety of projects and pieces of work – all of which have been interesting; thought-provoking and enjoyable and given me the chance to meet a wide range of people and professionals.

Frank Reddington

Enter and View Authorised
Representative

I am a retired Social Worker where I worked with children preparing to leave local authority care. I am now a volunteer for a number of different organisations
providing support to vulnerable people in Kirklees. I am also the Chair and a coach at my local athletics club.

For me Healthwatch is an opportunity to use my experience to influence the way that the systems in the health service work. It is a chance to enable the health and care services to continue to be accessible and understanding of changing individual’s needs.”

Mary Simpson

Enter and View Authorised
Representative

I retired 10 years ago and volunteer with other charities and wanted to do a bit more. I saw an advert about volunteering for Healthwatch Kirklees and decided to give it a go. I was very pleased I applied – after training, I’ve done enter and view visits, outreach and lots else about health and social care. I get amazing support and there’s a lot of flexibility to do as much as you can and want to do. It’s very interesting and worthwhile way to volunteer.

Andrew Hare

Enter and View Authorised
Representative

I recently retired after a long career in social care, working in several different roles including social worker and commissioner.

I have been a volunteer for Healthwatch since last year and have taken on roles in outreach sessions and Enter and View visits. 

I have lived in Scissett for a few years but am originally from Hartlepool in the north east. 

Dur-E-Nayab

Micro Volunteer

When lockdown hit and I found myself having more time than I knew what to do with it, I decided it would be the optimal opportunity to dedicate it to helping my local community. Face-to-face opportunities were non-existent, but through an internship programme I had done with the Kirklees council pre-pandemic, I was referred through TSL Kirklees to join Healthwatch Kirklees as an online feedback collector. This volunteering role involved collecting reviews from friends and family that have used local health and social care services. This focused on what the organisations were doing right, but also where patients felt improvements could be made. Moving out for university meant that I had less time on my hands and have since become a micro volunteer. My role now mainly involves doing voice-overs for various media projects.

Shania

Micro Volunteer

I joined Healthwatch Kirklees in 2020 as an online feedback collector. This role has allowed me to manage many different tasks such as obtaining information that health and social care services can use to improve their services and therefore provide the best quality of care needed. In doing so, I have enhanced my analytical and communication skills by working with a range of diverse individuals and listening to their opinions and effective suggestions. Now as a micro volunteer, my input is more directed towards proofreading and editing different reports and surveys for different services. Healthwatch Kirklees is a very supportive and welcoming community that I love being a part of as it encourages every generation, every community and every background to get involved and be heard as a means to improve the services in and around their local community, which is very important to me.

Adnan

Community Engagement & Outreach Volunteer   

I am a Community Engagement & Outreach Volunteer here at Healthwatch Volunteer. I signed up when I was in college when the pandemic was at its peak. I wanted to make the most out of the pandemic and develop as much experience as possible. Throughout the pandemic, I took part in research and online information gathering. When the outreach sessions were running I attended a couple and I enjoyed being a part of taking individuals’ feedback and actively making a difference in the services provided within the area. I have always been an active member of the community and being part of Healthwatch creates a sense of belonging whilst making a real difference to people’s lives. Healthwatch doesn’t create a line between taking care of the community and you. They make you feel part of this community and take care of you as well. Having Healthwatch alongside my studies has been beneficial in so many ways as it helps me to work on my social skills, my communication and my exposure to the real world. I would highly recommend anyone who wants to make a difference and be a part of a great organisation to join Healthwatch

Ume

Community Engagement & Outreach  volunteer  

I’m Ume, I joined Healthwatch as a volunteer in October 2022 and I love to be part of the outreach and engagement sessions in the community, talking to people about their experiences of using health and social care services.  I love to listen to people’s stories and enjoy making sure their voice is heard, creating a positive impact.
My spare time is spent enjoying time with the family or going out with my friends.

Bob

Community Engagement & Outreach Volunteer   

Hi I’m Bob! Not sure why! Born at an early age and still amazed by life and what it throws up.

I am attempting to live a life less seriously, sharing the secrets of my mistakes and bloopers to those who need to hear and who might avoid at least some pitfalls. I really do try to not take myself too seriously. I have been around the metaphorical block and know where the bumps are.

Charity co-founder, peer support leader, recovery champion and loads of other stuff. I have lived several lifetimes and still cannot believe I have survived to tell the tale. So now, retired I volunteer and attempt to help where I can! Particularly involved and interested in people, mental health, fairness and equality, wellbeing and laughter! And more laughter! Advocate, talker and ally. Reader, football fan and so on and on!!!

Emma

 Micro Volunteer

I became a Healthwatch Volunteer in May 2020. I was inspired to join after giving feedback on their website about a local NHS service. Healthwatch contacted me and I had the opportunity to voice my experience with the service in question. This then formed part of a report undertaken by Healthwatch that led to real life positive changes for other service users. I was delighted! 

 I have been involved in the ‘hypermobility syndromes project’ with Healthwatch  Calderdale. As a sufferer of a hypermobility syndrome (Ehlers Danlos Syndrome) I know first-hand the barriers to diagnosis and treatment that many patients experience. It is an amazing feeling to be part of project that is gathering the real voice of the patient which can sometimes be overlooked. 

 If you have a few hours each week to spare, it is worth volunteering with Healthwatch. You have the opportunity to be part of a great team and help make some real change.’