Our Board of Directors
Northampton General Hospital NHS Trust is governed by a Board of Directors. It's made up of Executive Directors, appointed to specific roles within the organisation, and Non-Executive Directors, who bring a range of external expertise with them. We also have Group Executive Directors who work across Northampton and Kettering General Hospitals as part of the University Hospitals of Northamptonshire Group.
Andrew Moore: Group Chair UHN and UHL
Andrew’s commercial background is in retail where he held a variety of senior positions including Directorships at Marks & Spencer, Chief Merchandising Officer at Asda-Walmart and Chief Commercial Officer at Wilko. He has also worked in South Africa where he started his own Retail Consultancy and partnered with Woolworths SA. He retains a close connection with the retail sector through his advisory work with corporate investor institutions.
In 2019 he joined the board of Breast Cancer Now charity as a Trustee where he is now Vice Chair. He is committed to helping the charity navigate the many challenges faced by the Not-For-Profit sector and contributing to its strategic development and operational efficiency; he also chairs the Finance & Investment Committee and sits on the Risk & Governance Committee. Andrew believes his business experience in focusing on quality, value and service can help support the KGH team in the next chapter of the hospital’s development.
Andrew was appointed Group Chair UHN and ULN from July 2024.
Richard Mitchell, Joint Chief Executive, UHN and UHL
Richard joined as joint Chief Executive of University Hospitals of Northamptonshire (UHN) and University Hospitals of Leicester NHS Trust (UHL) in October 2023.
He has been Chief Executive of UHL since 2021 and recently worked with the boards of both Kettering General Hospital (KGH) and Northampton General Hospital (NGH) as the Senior Responsible Officer for Collaboration.
He is the also the Chair of the East Midlands Cancer Alliance and Midlands Regional Talent and Leadership Board.
Richard is proud to work in his local hospitals and he and his family live in South Leicestershire.
Richard took on the role Acting CEO KGH from July 2024.
Executive directors
Hemant Nemade, UHN Medical Director
Hemant joined NGH in 2017 as a Consultant Urologist. Since then, he has worked in a number of roles from Regional Director for the Royal College of Surgeons to the Trust Clinical Director for Cancer Performance.
Following his appointment as Deputy Medical Director in 2020, Hemant has supported the organisation with some key initiatives from Governance to starting robotic assisted surgical services in Northamptonshire. He was appointed as Medical Director in July 2022, Hemant was appointed as UHN Medical Director in July 2024.
Julie Hogg, Interim UHN Chief Nurse
Julie was appointed UHN Chief Nurse in July 2024 whilst keeping her Chief Nurse role at University Hospitals of Leicester (UHL).
Julie joined UHL in May 2022 from Sherwood Forest Hospitals (SFH), where she served as Chief Nurse since 2019. At the time the Trust was voted Health Service Journal Acute and Specialist Trust of the Year. It became a recognised centre for best practice in women and children's care and laid the foundations for the Nursing and Midwifery Pathway to Excellence accreditation scheme. Prior to her role at SFH, she held the role of Deputy Chief Nurse at the University College London Hospitals for five years.
Sarah Noonan, Interim UHN Chief Operating Officer
Sarah has worked in the NHS for over 20 years and her career has spanned community and acute providers, as well as working for both an integrate care board and the regional NHS England team.
Before joining UHN, she worked as a Director of Operation for ESNFT covering Urgent and Elective Care.
Sarah joined UHN in January 2024 as Interim Chief Operating Officer for NGH and became Interim Chief Operating Officer for UHN in July 2024.
Richard Wheeler, UHN Chief Financial Officer
Richard joins UHN from Northamptonshire Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust (NHFT) where he has been the Executive Director of Finance since 2016. As a Chartered Accountant, Richard has many years of NHS experience in a range of sectors including Strategic Health Authority, Oxford University Hospitals and East Midlands Ambulance Service. Richard holds a Maths degree and in 2012, was awarded Healthcare Finance Managers Association, Deputy Finance Director of the Year.
Paula Kirkpatrick, UHN Chief People Officer
Paula was appointed as Group Chief People Officer in September 2022 after a career in HR spanning both public and private sectors, latterly including 15 years in policing where she was half of a job share partnership working in a number of senior roles. Whilst working for Cambridgeshire Constabulary Paula was part of the HR leadership team that developed a collaborated HR service across Bedfordshire, Cambridgeshire and Hertfordshire police forces.
Paula’s areas of interest include health and wellbeing and equality, diversity and inclusion. She believes leadership is about supporting teams and individuals to be the best they can be: by ensuring people are healthy and well in the broadest sense; are able to be themselves in the workplace, bringing all their skills and expertise to their role; and are supported and developed to reach their potential.
Polly Grimmett, UHN Director of Strategy
Polly has responsibility for leading the Strategic Development of the two organisations. This includes being the executive lead for the redesign and rebuild of the site, including leading the work to rebuild a new Urgent Care facility for KGH. The role also includes developing relationships with other partners, to ensure patients in Northamptonshire receive an integrated approach to all there care needs and remain as well as possible. Polly spent much of her career in operational management roles in different acute providers, and also worked in commissioning and community services. Most recently she was part of the merger team at North West Anglia and led the redevelopment of the Stamford hospital site.
Richard Apps, UHN Director of Corporate and Legal Affairs
Richard has worked in health and care for over 25 years, joining the Kettering Board in 2018 and Northampton in 2022, during the formation of the University Hospitals of Northamptonshire (UHN) NHS Group.
Richard has previously worked in adult learning disability services in Northamptonshire before joining the NHS in Leicestershire in 2005. Richard also worked nationally and regionally with NHS Improvement where he focussed on quality and performance improvement across a range of NHS Trusts. Richard has also held honorary academic teaching posts at local universities.
Rebecca Taylor, UHN Director of Transformation and Quality Improvement
Becky joined UHN in October 2021, and has responsibility for leading the Transformation and Quality Improvement agenda across UHN. This includes being the executive lead for large-scale transformation programmes across KGH and NGH, supporting and enabling a culture of quality improvement, and the monitoring and tracking of programmes and projects.
Becky spent much of her career in management consultancy supporting different acute providers, community providers, local authorities and NHS national bodies to develop strategies and transform services. She is a Health Foundation Q Community Fellow and is passionate about supporting staff to make things work better for both our patients and our staff.
Natasha Chare, UHN Chief Digital Information Officer
Natasha brings with her a strong track record of leading engaged teams to deliver strategic change for the benefit of patients and staff. Natasha’s focus is to ensure our digital team responds to the needs of our organisation knowing that digital is a key enabler in supporting our colleagues to have the tools and information they need to do their job most effectively. Natasha’s emphasis is on digital working with wider teams to bring about digital progress across our hospital including supporting clinicians to have access to full, accurate and timely patient information and giving patients the ability to increasingly be in control of their care.
Natasha’s background is in change management and transformation –before joining the digital team in 2020, Natasha was in Kettering’s transformation team. Prior to this Natasha was a management consultant working alongside public sector teams to improve operational practices and processes including becoming the digital lead for the company. Natasha has also worked in numerous continuous improvement and commercial roles in the logistics sector. More recently, Natasha has received a post graduate diploma in Digital Health Leadership.
Stuart Finn, UHN Director of Estates, Facilities and Sustainability
Stuart's career began in electrical engineering. He has worked in both technical and senior management roles in several industries including airports, automotive manufacturing, semi-conductor manufacturing and facilities management. He joined NGH in December 2006 and prior to his current role he was the Head of Estates and Deputy Director of Facilities. Stuart has responsibility for both hard and soft services facilities management as well as our procurement and sterile services departments.
Stuart was appointed UHN Director of Estates, Facilities and Sustainability from July 2024.
Suzie O'Neill, UHN Director of Communications and Engagement
Suzie joined the Trust in February 2023 and has responsibility for corporate communications and engagement. Suzie, who is a former journalist, has years of experience of leading communications in both the public and charity sector. Most recently she was Deputy Director of Communications and Engagement at Nottingham University Hospitals NHS Trust. Suzie is passionate about staff engagement, honest and open communication, empowering teams to deliver continuous improvement and putting the patient at the heart of what we do.
Will Monaghan, Group Chief Digital Information Officer at UHL
and UHN
William joined University Hospitals of Leicester and University Hospitals of Northamptonshire in August 2024, after previously being the CDIO at University Hospitals of Derby and Burton. He has 16 years of NHS experience across acute trusts, NHS England and NHSX. William’s expertise has seen him lead digital transformation from complex acute environments to national programmes. His particular focus on ensuring the voice of colleagues and patients drives what and how technology is used in the organisation. William is focussed on delivering the digital and data strategy across the group and leading the use of new digital technologies and approaches to better support colleagues and patients. Outside the Trust, Will lectures for Imperial College London on the NHS Digital Academy as a Leading Digital Health Practitioner. He is also the digital lead for the East Midlands Acute Provider collaborative (EMAP).
Non-executive directors
Alice Cooper
After studying Psychology, Alice started her professional career at KPMG, qualifying as a Chartered Accountant and later joining the specialist Financial Services Audit team. She later moved to working directly for a large Building Society Group, holding a variety of senior roles in the areas of Risk, Information, Strategy and Planning. Having always enjoyed the people development side of her work, more recently, Alice trained as an Executive and Career Coach, and now combines this freelance role with her other responsibilities, including her non-executive director role.
Alice was born in Kettering and has lived in the area for much of her life. Outside of work and looking after a young family, she is a keen singer, and is also active in children and families work in her local church.
Alice was appointed as a Non-Executive Director for University Hospitals of Northamptonshire from 1st September 2024.
Christopher Welsh
Chris joined NGH on 8th December 2023 as a NED. He has been a NED at Kettering General Hospital, the Trust’s partner in the UHN Group, since 2017.
Chris has held a number of senior and board posts in the NHS, including vascular surgeon and then Medical Director of Sheffield Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust. He is the Chair of the Yorkshire and the Humber Clinical Senate which provides impartial and independent advice to healthcare organisations. His key interests include patient safety, the quality of services and clinical collaboration and education.
Chris was appointed as a Non-Executive Director for University Hospitals of Northamptonshire from 1st September 2024.
Denise Kirkham
Denise joined the NGH Board in February 2020. As an Executive Resourcing and OD professional, Denise is highly experienced at working with Boards and Executive teams in an advisory and developmental capacity. Qualified to Level A and B in Occupational Testing, Myers Briggs and ILM 7 Executive coaching studies, Denise has held posts at Director level across sectors. Throughout her consultancy career, Denise has led and delivered on executive and NED recruitment, major Culture Change projects, organisational structure reviews and Executive coaching. Through her earlier career in the private sector, Denise developed strong business development and commercial skills, and a clear understanding of Customer Focus.
Denise was appointed as a Non-Executive Director for University Hospitals of Northamptonshire from 1st September 2024.
Jill Houghton
Jill was appointed as a non-executive director in May 2018. She is currently a registered nurse and has worked as a midwife and health visitor. Jill has had experience in all sectors of healthcare, clinically and managerially within primary and secondary care. As a board member she has been responsible for patient services, quality, medicines optimisation and children, young people and maternity commissioning. Jill was most recently Chief Nurse for Cambridgeshire and Peterborough CCG and is now a Maternity Clinical Lead within the national Maternal and Neonatal Health Safety Collaborative.
Jill was appointed as a Non-Executive Director for University Hospitals of Northamptonshire from 1st September 2024.
Trevor Shipman
Trevor has extensive experience in the NHS and was Finance Director of Central and Northwest London NHS Foundation Trust.
He is a member of the Association of Certified Chartered Accountants and brings a wealth of experience in audit and finance to the Board.
Trevor was appointed as a Non-Executive Director for University Hospitals of Northamptonshire from 1st September 2024.
Damien Venkatasamy
Damien has 23 years experience in the IT service industry.
He has lots of experience in delivering services to public sector organisations and wants to use this opportunity to work in the public sector and share his experience of delivering complex and challenging change projects.
Damien was appointed as a Non-Executive Director for University Hospitals of Northamptonshire from 1st September 2024.
Caroline Stevens
Caroline Stevens started her career as a community pharmacist in Leicestershire and Northamptonshire, moving into hospital pharmacy management. She later became an operating theatre manager and hospital Managing Director.
In 2009 she moved in the charity sector as a senior director at The British Lung Foundation, then Chief Executive at a children’s disability charity. Since 2019 she has been the Chief Executive at The National Autistic Society, a UK wide charity supporting autistic people and their families.
Caroline lives in Northamptonshire. She is a mother of three adult sons, including Jack who is autistic, has severe learning disabilities, and has complex support needs requiring full support 24 hours per day. The experience of being a carer and securing appropriate health and care services for her disabled son has shaped many aspects of her life and career. This makes her determined to strive for safe, high quality health services that are accessible to all.
Caroline was appointed as a Non-Executive Director for University Hospitals of Northamptonshire from 1st September 2024.
Natalie Armstrong
Natalie is the University of Leicester nominated Non-Executive Director on the Board. She is currently Deputy Head of the College of Life Sciences at the University, a role she undertakes alongside her own academic work. Natalie’s academic background is as a social scientist and her research uses social science theory and methods to support the delivery of high quality, safe healthcare. Her interdisciplinary health services research typically involves mixed-methods collaborations with clinical and non-clinical colleagues across and outside the University. Natalie was brought up in Northamptonshire, having been born at Kettering General Hospital. The vast majority of her family still lives in the area served by the hospital, and so she is a frequent visitor back to the local area.
Natalie was appointed as a Non-Executive Director for University Hospitals of Northamptonshire from 1st September 2024.