Healthwatch Kirklees is an Independent charity. We employ a small staff team and are helped by volunteers. Our Board of Trustees oversees and steers our work, members of our board are not paid for their role.

Team


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Stacey - Director of Healthwatch Kirklees

Stacey has worked for Healthwatch since 2015 and is the Director for Healthwatch Kirklees. She graduated from Huddersfield University with a degree in Marketing and has previously worked within the pharmaceutical and dentistry sector.

Her role at Healthwatch Kirklees is to advocate and champion voices and experiences of local people with NHS and social care managers.

Stacey is passionate about patient voice and ensures that peoples stories provide learning and improvements to local services.

In her spare time Stacey enjoys blogging, being at the beach and relaxing with a good book.


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Clare - Operations Manager

I’ve worked with Healthwatch since it started in 2013. I’m still working for the organisation because I have a passion for championing the voice of people in our local communities, particularly those who are sometimes easy to ignore.

I’m now the Operations Manager for Healthwatch Kirklees and Healthwatch Calderdale and I work with amazing colleagues and volunteers who are so kind, knowledgeable and skilled in the work they do; my job is made easier because we’re all working to provide the best possible service to local people and we all want to make a difference.

When I’m not at work I love running and I’m proud to say I’m in the 1% of the population who have run a marathon!


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Katherine - Volunteering and Engagement Officer

Enter and View Lead
I have worked for Healthwatch Kirklees since 2014. I am responsible for the recruiting, supervising and the supporting of our wonderful volunteering team. My aim is for all our volunteers to achieve their potential while having a fun and positive volunteering experience. Lets hope we have got it right!

I take the lead on our Enter and View visits which are something I'm also very passionate about. Its important to me to make sure that health and social care services listen to the voices of the people using their services.

In my spare time I volunteer for a local charity which I enjoy.
I feel time best spent for me is with family and friends laughing or enjoying the many walks in our local area.
I love nothing more than travelling to new places and sampling the local cuisine near and far.
I enjoy working for Healthwatch its good to work with vibrant, happy team.


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Deborah - Mental Health Engagement Officer

I joined Healthwatch Kirklees in 2019 as a part- time Engagement and information officer. Being a working carer myself, I am fully supported within my role to work flexibly and effectively, so I can engage with local communities, listen carefully to the feedback people give us, to signpost and empower local people to get the best from health and social care services.
I will be taking up a new role for 12 months in January 2023 as a specialist Mental Health Engagement and Information officer across both Kirklees and Calderdale. I hope to contribute to challenging those in authority to listen, improve and design better health and social care services.

In my spare time I enjoy going for long walks with my two dogs Charley and Teddy.


Data and Intelligence Officer Analyst

Current vacancy


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Alexandra - Engagement and Information Officer

I joined the Healthwatch team in April 2022 as an Information and Engagement Officer for both Calderdale and Kirklees.

I came to the team with over a decade of experience of working in social care and have a passion to help people within the community, particularly vulnerable individuals, whose voices aren’t always heard.

I have really enjoyed joining this fun-loving and caring team!

When I’m not at work you’ll usually find me in the kitchen baking (sometimes burning) yummy treats!


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Mark - Office Administrator

I have been with Healthwatch since September 2022 as the Office Administrator for both Kirklees and Calderdale. I have a background of working in health and social care administration since 1996 and being a full-time carer for ten years for my mother.

I particularly enjoy the variety of my work with Healthwatch and it is definitely true that no two days are ever the same.

Most of my spare time is spent listening to music and restoring historical recordings to newer formats.


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Helen - Communications Officer

Hi I'm Helen, Communications Officer for Healthwatch Kirklees and Calderdale. I joined the team in 2021 and have found it inspiring to work with an organisation genuinely committed to helping people and improving public health services.

As Communications Officer my job is to make sure people find out about all the great work we are doing to improve health and social care in Kirklees and Calderdale.

I get to help tell stories like these which showcase just how hard our team work to have a positive impact. I design communications and raise awareness for projects like this where we partner with local organisations to help make a difference in our communities. I also share useful information on our website and social media sites to keep local people up to date with health and social care support news.

At home, I'm a Mum of two — my girl Erica and my boy Leo, who are little superstars and we spend many an evening having a kitchen disco or playing dress up. Not everyone knows that many years ago I qualified as a rescue diver in Indonesia!


Board


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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 1st 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.

 


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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.


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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


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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”!


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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 6th 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.


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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.


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Lisa Hodgson

Lisa is passionate about ensuring local people receive the health and social care services they need, and that their views shape and improve those services.  Having a sister with a degenerative health condition, she is also aware how tiring it can be to manage day to day health issues, so I’m also keen that Healthwatch supports providers to make their systems; communications and processes less stressful and simpler to navigate wherever possible.  Patient and service user feedback is key to this.

Lisa highlights that there is fantastic work being undertaken locally which she welcomes and intends to share good practice.

 

Lisa has had various roles with Kirklees Council since 2004 including safeguarding and currently housing. For the last few years, much of her free time has been spent supporting her in-laws in an unpaid caring role; this has given her additional and a different perspective of health and care services. 

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 (non-executive director) 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 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 sport, reading historical murder-mysteries and travelling (particularly cruising and visiting places of interest around the UK).


Volunteers


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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.

 


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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.


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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

 

Update coming soon 


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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. 

 


Julie

Enter and View Authorised
Representative

 

Update coming soon 


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Salma

Community Engagement & Outreach Volunteer   

I am a civil servant and volunteer in my spare time. The flexibility of volunteering at Healthwatch allows  me to do this.  I love volunteering for HealthWatch, as I get to  meet other volunteers, attend training sessions and work on new, diverse and exciting projects in my local community. There are opportunities to enhance my existing skills  as well as  develop new skills.  I receive feedback on my volunteering contributions and  how I have made a difference. The Heathwatch team are all friendly and super supportive.

 


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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.


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Shakila

Community Engagement & Outreach Volunteer   

I volunteer for Healthwatch Kirklees. This is an interesting and varied role.Due to the pandemic, there is no face-to-face interactions at the moment but I have been speaking to family members and friends and getting them to post reviews of the different healthcare services on the website. This allows the services to be improved and also looks at services that are doing well so where feedback is positive and can continue to provide a good service. My university course was based around health and nutrition so I was always looking to get back into that field, so this was the perfect opportunity to do that.


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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   

Update coming soon 


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Ume

Community Engagement & Outreach  volunteer  

 

Update coming soon 


Bob

Community Engagement & Outreach Volunteer   

Update coming soon