Our Board

Janelle was appointed as Chief Executive in June 2018, having already spent two years at the Trust as Chief Operating Officer.

Prior to joining Wirral University Teaching Hospital, Janelle was the Director of Operations and Performance at Salford Royal Foundation Trust.

Janelle has worked in the NHS since qualifying as a Registered General Nurse in 1991. During her nursing career she worked in a variety of clinical areas, moving into operational management in 2004 following a spell as a ‘health economy’ service transformation lead.

Janelle is passionate about service improvement, staff development and whole system working to improve patient outcomes and experience. In 2011 she successfully integrated Salford Community Adult and Children’s Services with the acute hospital as Managing Director for Salford Health Care. In 2015 she established the Better Care at Lower Cost programme as Director for Productivity and Efficiency with the specific focus of improving patient quality and safety to drive cost reduction.

Dr Nicola (Nikki) Stevenson qualified as a doctor from The University of Liverpool (MBChB). She undertook her training throughout Cheshire and Merseyside during which time she obtained a Medical Doctorate (MD) which is a higher research degree awarded to medical professionals. She originally joined WUTH as a junior doctor and was appointed as a Consultant in Respiratory & General (Internal) Medicine in 2007.

Dr Stevenson’s extensive career with WUTH has seen her progress within our services from Clinical Service Lead for Respiratory Medicine (2015) to the role of Associate Medical Director for the Division of Medicine (2018) and then later in 2018 she was appointed Executive Medical Director. She also became Deputy Chief Executive in 2020.

She is the designated Responsible Officer for the medical profession at the Trust, overseeing compliance and best practice in education, patient safety and quality, regulation and the professional conduct of Trust appointed doctors, Specialist and Specialty doctors, and Consultants. She is also the Responsible Officer for Wirral Hospice St Johns.

Dr Stevenson retains her clinical practice, seeing patients in her field of respiratory medicine in clinic and as part of the respiratory consultant on call rota. She also has executive oversight of the WUTH Research and Innovation portfolio and its cohort of Principal Investigators for clinical trials.

In addition, Dr Stevenson is the executive lead for Medical Education responsible for the teaching and training of medical students from the University of Liverpool and doctors (‘junior’ doctors, or doctors in training). WUTH is the only teaching hospital on the Wirral and trains hundreds of students and doctors every year.

She lives locally with her family on the Wirral.

Deborah joined WUTH in March 2021, initially as an interim, before being appointed as Chief People Officer in December 2021. Deborah has worked in the NHS for over 10 years, coming through the NHS Graduate Management Training Scheme. Deborah has worked as a Human Resources and Organisational Development professional in several other NHS Trusts and prior to joining WUTH, she worked as the Deputy Chief People Officer at Warrington and Halton Hospitals NHS Trust. Deborah is passionate about supporting and developing our staff to make WUTH a great place to work and to keep patients at heart of what we do.

Matthew Swanborough joined the Trust as the Director of Strategy and Partnerships in November 2019. Prior to this, he was Director of Resilience at Manchester University NHS Foundation Trust. Matthew has also held a number of other operational roles at Manchester University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust including Director of Operations at Manchester Infirmary and Trust Turnaround Director, directing the financial recovery programme. Before this Mathew worked as the Director of Healthcare Consulting at PricewaterhouseCoopers in Sydney, Australia, leading on clinical improvements, financial recovery and mergers with a range of public and private healthcare organisations.

Mark Chidgey joined the Trust in June 2022, having been the Chief Finance officer for NHS Wirral Clinical Commissioning Group. Mark is a qualified accountant, who graduated from the University of York.

Since joining the NHS in 1990, Mark has considerable experience in both acute and commissioning sectors. Mark has worked at board level for over 10 years, most of that time as a finance leader, but his responsibilities have also included Quality, Safeguarding, Commissioning and Performance.

Mark brings with him a wealth of experience of partnership working across health and care systems and has worked at a national level on the development and implementation of payment systems and outcomes frameworks for population health.

Sir David was appointed as Chairman in February 2019 having previously been Interim Chairman since February 2018.

He was formerly Chair of Alder Hey Children’s NHS Foundation Trust between February 2011 and February 2019.

Among his many achievements, Sir David was responsible for the review of the child support system in the UK in 2007. He was also involved in the Prime Minister’s Delivery Unit Capability Review programme of central government departments.

Alongside his role at Alder Hey, Sir David was also a Non-Executive Director for a number of other public and private organisations including the Chair of Manchester Academy for Health Sciences and Non-Executive Director for Albany Investment PLC. He has various charitable Trustee roles

In February 2012 Sir David was asked by Monitor to take on the role of Interim Chair at University Hospitals of Morecambe Bay NHS Foundation Trust. This lasted until April 2013.He has subsequently been interim Chair at Dorset Healthcare Foundation Trust and St Georges University Hospital Foundation Trust.

Chris was appointed Non-Executive Director in July 2018 and brings with him great knowledge and experience of technology developments and project management from his career in the Aerospace Industry.

Having held a number of senior executive level positions with BAE Systems, Chris has worked both nationally and internationally. His primary talents and interest are within the areas of technology development, project management and leadership where he has made many notable achievements.

Chris has a strong wish to support the community and the NHS through sharing his wealth of experience supporting the organisation and its dedicated workforce.

Rajan is a public health doctor who worked in senior medical management positions in the NHS until his retirement. He took a major interest in health care quality and safety and academic medicine throughout his active career. Now a days his focus is on global and public health, capacity building and leadership development, and he is keen to promote reflective practice – further details of his work are at www.ramareflections.com

Amongst many other positions he was the Chairman of British Association of Physicians of Indian Origin and a Council member of the GMC, and presently serves as a trustee of some voluntary organisations. He lives in North Wales.

Sue Lorimer joined the board in July 2017. She has spent most of her career in NHS Finance, mainly in the provider sector and is an associate member of the Chartered Institute of Management Accountants.

She took up her first Finance director post in 1990 and has held board level posts in a variety of NHS providers including ambulance, community and specialised services. She joined the NHS Trust Development Authority, (later NHS Improvement) when it was formed in 2013, taking the lead on provider Finance across the north of England.

She is a keen supporter of training and development and was a trustee of the Healthcare Financial Management Association for 9 years, taking the role of president in 2015. She retired from full time work in 2016.