The North West Regional Board: what it means to you
The Regional Board is the democratically-elected governing body of the RCN in the North West. The Board works with the Regional Director to set the RCN's regional strategic objectives and priorities, helps to advance and influence policy, and represents the interests of and influences on behalf of North West members. It also advances the RCN's aims and objectives, namely to:
- promote the art and science of nursing and the better education and training of nurses and their efficiency in the profession of nursing
- promote the advancement of nursing as a profession in all or any of its branches
- promote the professional standing and interests of members of the nursing profession
- assist nurses who, by reason of adversity, ill health or otherwise are in need of assistance of some nature.
The Board was established in April 2002 and meets four times a year.
Representation
The RCN North West Regional Board is comprised of a total of 20 members who represent:
- National seats - Council, student member, UK National Committees (stewards, health and safety, and learning Representatives); and
- Divisional seats - Manchester, Lancashire, Isle of Man, and Cheshire & Merseyside
Board and branch links
To help keep members and activists up to date on the strategic work of both the Board and the region, each regional branch has a designated Board link member. The link member plays an important role in helping to disseminate information to their designated branch and feeding back news and views from branch members to the Board.
The Board link members are:-
- Cheshire East branch - Jean Rogers
- Cheshire West branch - Marcia Jones
- Greater Liverpool and Knowsley branch - Suzanne Butler
- Greater Manchester branch - Hamish Kemp
- Isle of Man branch - Marcia Jones
- Lancashire East branch - Ali Handscomb
- Lancashire West branch - Ali Handscomb
- Manchester Central branch - Claire Chatterton
Find out more about your Board members here:
National seats
Council member and Board Chair Hamish Kemp
Hamish works as a Clinical Lead for the short-term assessment and intervention service at Manchester Learning Disability Partnership. His role involves the co-ordination of the clinical support of people with learning disabilities, who have additional complex behaviour and/or mental health needs. He is also the service's Regional Manager. He is qualified in both Learning Disability and Mental Health Nursing, has a diploma in Forensic Learning Disabilities, and holds the Registered Managers' Award.
He has a keen interest in the support of Stewards, and employment matters as they relate to nurses. His particular interests are in the development of pay modernisation and working time regulations.
Hamish can be contacted by email at hamish.kemp@rcn.org.uk
Council member - Mike Travis
Mike has worked at Alder Hey Children's Hospital for over 30 years.
Concurrently, he has been an RCN member for the same length of time and, as an active member of the RCN, has held a number of key positions which include:
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Steward (1980 to date)
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Safety Representative (1980 to date)
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Learning Representative (1999 to date)
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A member of the Greater Liverpool and Knowsley branch executive (1980 to date)
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North West Regional Board member (2003 to 2007 and 2011 to date)
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North West region Council Member (1999 to 2007 and 2011 to date)
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Chair of Membeship, Representation and Diversity Committee (2003 to 2007)
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RCN Membership and Representation Committee (2011 to date)
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RCN Governance Committee (2011 to date)
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NHS Staff Council (2002 to 2007)
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Nursing Standard Editorial Board (1999 to 2008)
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Chair of RCN UK Safety Representative Committee (1995 to 1999)
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Represented the RCN at the International Congress of Nursing in 1997, 2000, 2004 and 2007.
Mike has also published widely, mostly on health sector employment relations and occupational health and safety, as well as being a media commentator on the health care political and economics of nursing care.
In his spare time Mike works as a photographer and as a dock officer on deep sea sailing ships.
UK Steward Representative - Catherine Leach
Cath is a Senior Staff Nurse in the outpatient department at the Christie NHS Foundation Trust where she has worked in various wards and departments over the past 28 years.
Cath has been active in the RCN since 1992, including working as a Steward and Safety Representative (Rep). She is Chair of the Joint Union Committee and was the staff side lead for Agenda for Change (AfC). She is Treasurer of the Manchester Central branch and as a Board member worked with the membership group on the branch review. She can be contacted by email at catherineleach135@btinternet.com
UK Safety Representative - Catriona (Cat) Forsyth
Cat is the Risk Manager at NHS Salford. Her career has spanned three decades and has included working in learning disability, brain injury, mental health and now in an Acute hospital. She has experience in private, voluntary and statutory provision.
Cat has been active in the RCN since 1999, and this has included working as a Steward, Learning Rep, and Safety Rep. She held the positions of Chair, Secretary and Treasurer in the former Salford branch, and currently holds the regional seat on the UK Safety Representatives' Committee.
UK learning representative - vacant
Student member - vacant
Divisional seats - Manchester
Janet Marsden - Board Vice-Chair
Janet has been a nurse for more than 15 years, in the field of ophthalmics. Although she is now an academic, running a post-graduate programme within Manchester Metropolitan University (MMU), she still works as a clinician on a regular basis. She was Chair of the Ophthalmic Nursing Forum for eight years, completing her term of office last year. She also served on the National Forum Co-ordinating Committee.
Janet currently chairs a multi-professional group which looks at issues around continuing professional development (CPD). This group has recently published a position statement - the widest ranging piece of work yet undertaken by the RCN with other AHPs. She writes in the areas of ophthalmic care, advanced practice in nursing, and emergency care.
She is also a member of the Department of Health's eye services steering group. Janet is also Vice-Chair of a local research ethics committee. Janet is passionate about nursing and the impact of what we do on the people we work with and care for.
Jean Rogers
Jean qualified as a Registered Nurse (RN) in 1988, from Salford NHS Trust. She has worked in a number of areas, including elective orthopaedics, acute trauma and ENT, rheumatology and endocrinology, acute medicine and acute rehabilitation. She undertook the orthopaedic course at the Robert Jones and Agnes Hunt Orthopaedic Hospital in 1991 where she was in the last group to undertake the twelve-month course, and in her spare time completed a Certificate of Higher Education. Following this Jean held the posts of Senior Staff Nurse, Junior Sister and Lecturer/Practitioner, and completed a BSc (Hons) in Nursing Practice.
Jean is Chair of the North West Orthopaedic and Trauma Forum and is a member of the Focus on Research into Orthopaedics Group (FROG), and the Trauma and Orthopaedic Nurse Educators (TONE). Her main interests lie in nurse education and the politics of nursing, and she takes an active role in both areas as a member of the Practice Educators special interest group and the RCN Education Forum.
Jean's current post is Practice Educator Facilitator for Stockport NHS Foundation Trust, where she believes that she has the best of both worlds, educating the nurses of the future in the practice setting. She has undertaken the Practice Educators Masters module and is at the present time undertaking an MSc in Professional Development.
Claire Chatterton
Claire Chatterton is a Staff Tutor in the Faculty of Health and Social Care at the Open University (OU), and is based in the OU's North West Regional Centre in Manchester. She also works as a programme tutor on the OU's Pre-registration in Nursing programme, supporting a group of students sponsored by Pennine Care NHS Foundation Trust.
Claire trained as a general nurse at the London Hospital and as a mental health nurse at Littlemore and the Warneford Hospitals in Oxford. After a career in clinical practice, she became a lecturer practitioner at Oxford Brookes University, and then went into full-time nurse education as a Senior Lecturer at the Institute of Nursing and Midwifery at the University of Brighton. She moved to the North West in 2004 to undertake a full time PhD at the University of Salford, where she also taught as a graduate Teaching Assistant.
Divisional seats - Lancashire and the Isle of Man
Ali Handscomb
Ali is a Project Leader for major service change at Pennine Acute Hospitals NHS Trust. She continues to work as an independent consultant on small consultancy projects and is an active mentor and coach. She is a former Director and founder of the European Nursing Leadership Foundation.
At the NHS Leadership Centre, Ali was the National Programme Manager for Leading Empowered Organisations (LEO) and the RCN Clinical Leadership programme. She was responsible for facilitating networks of trainers and programme administrators across the country, and ensuring that over 34,000 nurses attended the programme.
During the 1990s as the Regional HIV/AIDS Counsellor for the North West, Ali worked to bring services for over 80 patients with haemophilia and HIV/AIDS together across primary and secondary care. She ensured that the interface between community services and the hospital was effective and efficient, and promoted inter-departmental and inter-disciplinary working at all levels.
Divisional seats - Cheshire and Merseyside
Suzanne Butler
Suzanne's involvement with the RCN began during her first year of training, in 1999 at Edge Hill University, with training at Aintree Hospital. It was at this point that she first began campaigning for nursing issues. It was during this time that she attended what was to be the first of many conferences and subsequently became involved with the Association of Nursing Students (ANS). Where national campaigns have been launched which involve the lobbying of MPs she has always recognised the value of raising the issues personally. Since 2002, she has been an accredited RCN Steward and believes the skills she has built on and developed during this period are invaluable.
Suzanne is currently an Urgent Care Practitioner working in the area of Sefton. She considers it a privilege to hold a dual role in her nursing job, working as a sister in the community while also educating other staff and patients.
For the past six years, Suzanne has held the position of Vice-Chair of the local branch. She is a grassroots activist whose clinical and leadership skills are current. Suzanne has exceptional working knowledge of issues facing nurses and nursing at all levels, while also maintaining a passion to make a difference. She is friendly and approachable, with a keen interest in obtaining the best outcomes for members, which she has shown during many Rep cases.
Mandy O'Connor
Mandy started her nurse training at St Helens and Knowsley Health Authority in September 1989, and in September 1990 she moved to the paediatric unit at Whiston Hospital where she worked for a year.
She then emigrated to Toronto, where she worked on a neurosurgical ward for two years at the Sunnybrook Health Science Centre , before moving to British Columbia in 1992 where she worked in geriatrics. In 1997, Mandy became active in the British Columbia Nurses Union (BCNU) and attended the International Council of Nurses (ICN) Conference held in Vancouver in 1997, and the Canadian Labour Conference in Toronto as BCNU Rep in 1999.
In 1999 Mandy returned to the UK and worked in elderly care as an RN in a nursing home, before beginning employment in theatres at the Cardiothoracic Centre (CTC) in Liverpool as an anaesthetic nurse in 2000. Mandy moved to the National Blood Service in 2002, where her duties included collecting platelets and performing therapeutic procedures such as stem cell harvests, red cell exchanges and plasma exchanges.
She became active in the RCN in 2004 and was accredited as an RCN Steward. In 2006 she became more involved in the branch set-up in Liverpool, and has attended Congress as a voting member since 2008. She was proposed and elected as the PR Officer for the Greater Liverpool and Knowsley (GLK) branch Executive in 2009.
In 2010, Mandy was elected as branch Chair. She also holds a seat on the North West Regional Board.
Mandy is passionate about making the RCN branch accessible for all members of the RCN.