The North West regional board: what it means to you

Devolution in action

The regional board is the democratically elected governing body of the RCN whose purpose is to prepare the RCN for the future in accordance with the RCN's Charter.

Through RCN devolution of governance, the regional co-ordinating committee was replaced by a regional board from April 2002. The first meeting of the elected regional board took place on 24 October 2002.

Functions

Governance within the RCN is about providing leadership, setting strategic objectives and agreeing priorities to influence policy. Within the North West region the RCN board will be responsible for governance of the RCN regionally and will represent the interests of and influence on behalf of North West members.

Representation

The RCN North West regional board comprises a total of 20 members representing:

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 and Merseyside.

You can find a list of your board members below.

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 is to coordinate the clinical support of people with learning disabilities who have additional complex behaviour and/or additional mental health needs, as well as being 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 the working time regulations. Hamish can be contacted by email at hamish.kemp@rcn.org.uk

Council member - Mike Travis

Details to come.

UK steward representative - Catherine Leach

Cath is a senior staff nuse in the outpatient department at the Christie Hospital Foundation Trust where she has worked in various wards and departments for the past 28 years.

Cath has played an active part in the RCN since 1992 including being a steward and safety representative. She is chair of the joint union committee and was the staff side lead for Agenda for Change. She is treasurer of the Manchester Central branch and as a board member worked with the membership group looking at the branch review. She can be contacted by email at catherineleach135@btinternet.com

UK safety representative - Catriona Forsyth

Cat is the risk manager at NHS Salford. Her career has spanned over three decades working in learning disability, brain injury, mental health and now an acute hospital. She has experience in private, voluntary and statutory provision.

Cat has played an active part in the RCN since 1999 including being a steward, learning representative and safety representative. She has held the offices of chair, secretary and treasurer of the former Salford branch. For the past four years Cat has held the position of vice chair of the RCN regional board. She currently holds the seat on the UK Safety Representatives' Committee.

UK learning representative - Alison Taylor

Alison qualified as an RGN from Liverpool University in 2001, where she then undertook a further year to complete a Bachelor of Nursing (Hons) degree. Later she completed a master's degree in nursing in 2007.

Alison is a senior staff nurse on the in-patient chemotherapy unit at Clatterbridge Center for Oncology NHS Trust. She has worked there since 2001 in various nursing roles on the different wards and also within service improvement as a facilitator, project support worker and waiting times patient navigator.

Alison has been an active learning representative since 2006 and joined the regional board in February 2009.

Student member - vacant

Divisional seats - Manchester

Janet Marsden - Board Vice-Chair

Janet Marsden, North West regional board member Janet has been a nurse for more than 15 years in the field of ophthalmics. Although she is now an academic, running a postgraduate programme within Manchester Metropolitan University, 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 coordinating committee.

At present Janet chairs a multiprofessional group considering 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 about the impact of what we do on the people we work with and care for.

Jean Rogers

Jean qualified as a registered nurse (RGN) 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 in higher education. Following this Jean held post as senior staff nurse, junior sister and lecturer/practitioner and completed a BSc (Hons) in Nursing Practice.

Jean is chair of the Northwest 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 being a member of the practice educators special interest group and the RCN Education forum.

Jean's current post is as 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 a MSc in professional development.

Claire Chatterton

Claire Chatterton is a staff tutor in the Faculty of Health and Social Care at the Open University and is based in the Open University's (OU) 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 in 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, and is now based at the Open University.

Divisional seats - Lancashire and Isle of Man

Ali Handscomb

Ali is a project leader for major service change at Pennine Acute 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 for ensuring that over 34,000 nurses went on 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 were effective and efficient and promoted interdepartmental and interdisciplinary working at all levels.

Divisional seats - Cheshire and Merseyside

Suzanne Butler

Suzanne's involvement with the RCN began during her first year in training (1999 at Edge Hill University with training at Aintree Hospital) where 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 got involved with the Association of Nursing Students (ANS). Where national campaigns have been launched that involve lobbying MP's she has always seen the value of raising the issues personally. Since 2002 she has been an accredited RCN Steward and feels the skills she has built upon and developed during this period are invaluable.

Suzanne is currently an urgent care practitioner working in the area of Sefton. She feels it is a privilege to hold a dual role in her nursing job where she works as a sister in the community and also educate other staff and patients.

For the past six years Suzanne has held the position of vice chair of the local branch and is currently vice chair of Greater Liverpool and Knowsley branch. She is a grass roots activist whose clinical and leadership skills are current. Suzanne has exceptional working knowledge of issues facing nurses and nursing at all levels, whilst maintaining a passion to make a difference. She is friendly and approachable with a deep interest in obtaining the best conditions for members which she has shown during many representative cases; challenging those in high managerial positions to seek answers and change.

Marcia Jones

Jones Marcia

Marcia has been nursing since 1962 and is still actively involved working two days per week seconded to Agenda for Change and staff side duties. She became a steward and safety representative in 1988 and is Chair of the Cheshire West Branch.

Marcia has been a member of the North West Regional Board for the last two years and sits on the Equality and Human Rights sub-group. She finds being a member of the Board enables her to influence the needs of the RCN members by cascading important information to them from the RCN. Her role enables her to have an understanding of the main issues which can effect nursing across the North West.

Marcia has the knowledge, skills and experience to negotiate, consult and work in partnership within her Trust and she sits on the Policy Review group, Consultation and Negotiation group, Health and Safety group and Workforce and Development group.