Meet our Trust Board

Our Trust Board meets every month to discuss important issues. It is responsible for setting the direction of our Trust – by reviewing how we’re doing at the moment and making plans for the future.

Download the Foundation Trust Board structure overview

For more information about Trust Board meetings, please contact:

Hannah Sullivan

Corporate Governance and Membership Manager

Email: hannahsullivan@nhs.net

Roísìn Fallon-Williams

Chief Executive

Roisin is a Registered Learning Disability Nurse who spent much of her early career in clinical roles in and around Hertfordshire, within mental health and learning disability NHS organisations. She took up her first Board director role in 2002 at Hertfordshire Partnership NHS Trust, and since then has held a variety of Board roles with a wide range of responsibilities including seven years at Coventry and Warwickshire Partnership NHS Trust. Most recently she was Chief Executive at Norfolk Community Health and Care NHS Trust, which achieved an ‘Outstanding’ rating from the Care Quality Commission during her time there.

Philip Gayle

Trust Chair

Philip Gayle joined the Trust on 1 October 2019. Philip is Chief Executive at Servol Community Services, a third sector organisation that provides accommodation and support services for people experiencing mental health difficulties.

He has extensive knowledge and leadership experience within the health, social care and housing sector as well as expertise and specialised skills as a business consultant and in transformation and improving business performance. Philip has been an independent consultant for TRIBAL, an assessor for national funding applications for government schemes, where he gained key insight into government contracts and procurement.

He is a qualified counsellor and has an MSc in Healthcare Policy Management from the University of Birmingham. Philip has previously held a number of NHS board positions and is a non-executive director at Walsall Healthcare NHS Trust.

Bal Claire, Deputy Chair

Bal Claire

Deputy Chair

Bal has been with the Trust as a Non-Executive Director since January 2023 and is the Managing Director of his Management Consultancy company, MyQonsult, supporting organisations across a broad range of industry sectors to drive strategic growth. Bal is Chair of the global warehouse logistics consultancy – Swi-tch. Additionally, he is also an Associate at the international consultancy firm Alumni Services and an Independent Member of the Governing Council at the University of Warwick.

Previously Bal had a hugely successful career at BT. Starting as an apprentice he worked his way through to senior director roles leading large-scale strategic business transformation. His path from apprenticeship to Senior Executive has taught him the value of good coaching and mentorship in helping people fulfil their potential. He is a huge advocate of apprenticeships and the strategic value of vocational skills to the UK economy. Bal brings great knowledge, experience and expertise to BSMHFT.

Dr Linda Cullen,

Non-Executive Director

Dr Linda Cullen was appointed as a non-executive director of the Trust on 1 January 2019. Linda has worked as a consultant child and adolescent psychiatrist for 25 years in a wide variety of settings across the Midlands.  She is currently a locum consultant in the NHS and also a second opinion doctor for the Care Quality Commission. She has worked closely with colleagues in child and adult services, using research and evidence based practice in developing novel services.

Linda helped to develop Early Intervention in Psychosis services across Birmingham and acute and high dependency child and adolescent mental health services (CAMHS), including one of the first CAMHS acute admission wards in the UK. She has also been active as a trainer, tutor, and mentor and for several years in clinical lead and director roles with professional line management responsibilities.

Sue Bedward

Sue Bedward

Non-Executive Director

Sue is the Founder and Director of Midlands Business Leadership (MBL) Academy and brings a huge wealth of knowledge and experience in enterprise leadership and management and organisational development. More than 20 years of her career were in the NHS and another 15 running her own business.

Over the years, she has coached and mentored, business owners, executives and managers across public and private sector services, is a Certified Insights Discovery Practitioner, 360 Feedback Facilitator, a CiPD qualified trainer and a Member of the Chartered Management Institute. A member of the All Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) for ethnic minority business owners, Sue is passionate about driving forward the inclusive business support agenda to ensure it reflects and supports the needs of Black, Asian and ethnic minority business owners. Her other work includes board development, strategic business planning and governance. Sue prides herself on integrity, equity, fairness and respect and will bring a huge amount to the Board and Team BSMHFT.

Winston Weir

Non-Executive Director

Winston works at Board level for a variety of organisations with purposes beyond profit. He is an Independent Member at a Welsh University Health Board with an interest in Finance and chairs its Sustainable Resources Committee. He works at Board level as non-Executive Treasurer of a BAME church led Housing Association based in the West Midlands.

He brings experience of chairing and serving on Board committees, providing governance, risk, and audit & financial expertise.

Winston is a Big 4 qualified Public Finance Accountant with post graduate qualifications. He is CPFA qualified with significant post qualification experience in Public Sector Finance, Private Finance Initiative, procurement, and service improvement programmes. He established a small consultancy business in 2012, working in the public sector, providing support to various NHS / Housing/ Education organisations in senior project director / finance roles.

He has two children at University and his wife works at the University of Birmingham. He supports and mentors’ young people. He is a trustee of a charity with an interest in community initiatives, cultural heritage and promoting multi-cultural, vibrant communities in Northwest Birmingham.

Monica Shafaq

Non-Executive Director

Monica has been the Chief Executive of The Kaleidoscope Plus Group since 2010. She is committed to promoting the role of women and Black and Minority Ethnic individuals in leadership roles and has a keen interest in football, holding a number of non-executive roles in the sector. One of these is the post of Non-Executive Director at Birmingham County Football Association where she has lead responsibility for equality and mental health. She is also a member of the Premier League’s Equality and Diversity Panel.

Monica has been recognised for her work in supporting black, Asian and minority group communities and in February 2022, she won the Corporate Achievement of the Year’ category at the British Muslim Awards.

Thomas Kearney

Thomas Kearney

Non-Executive Director

Non-Executive Director, Thomas Kearney, has worked extensively as a clinician in both acute and community care across physical and mental health, specialising in neurology trauma and acute mental health.

In his career, Thomas has held a number of senior positions in the NHS including the role of Deputy Chief Operating Officer of a large integrated mental health and community trust, Deputy Chief Allied Health Professions Officer for NHS England and Deputy Director of Medical Workforce for England. Currently he is the Director of Performance for South West England.

Since 2007, Thomas has been involved with National Association of Psychiatric Intensive Care and Low Secure Units and became an executive member in 2011. His areas of special interest are in service improvement and change management to enable increased efficiency, quality and performance within mental health and acute services.

Thomas is passionate about mental health and is relishing the opportunity of working with our staff, service users and patients to deliver and develop our services.

Executive Directors

Patrick Nyarumbu MBE

Executive Director for Strategy, People and Partnerships and Deputy Chief Executive

Patrick Nyarumbu MBE was appointed as the Director of Strategy, People and Partnerships in November 2020 and was previously Director of Nursing, Leadership and Quality for NHS England and NHS Improvement (East of England). Following an internal process in March 2023, Patrick was appointed as BSMHFT’s Deputy Chief Executive.

Patrick is a mental health nurse by background and has worked and in a wide range of NHS organisations covering mental health, acute and specialist services as well as a Primary Care Trust and a Clinical Commissioning Group. Patrick is passionate about leadership development, talent management and championing diversity.

Fabida Aria

Executive Medical Director

Fabida Aria was appointed Executive Medical Director for BSMHFT in April 2022. Fabida is responsible, among other things, for medical, psychology and pharmacy leadership at the Trust.

Fabida is a consultant psychiatrist and previous has been a medical leader for Leicestershire Partnership NHS Trust since 2013  and a system leader in the region in the last few years. She has been associate medical director for mental health services in adult, older adults and learning disability patients. She brings a wealth of clinical leadership experience and many  initiatives she led have been recognised nationally.

She is a Fellow of the Royal college of psychiatrists and also has done a Masters in healthcare leadership. She holds additional roles at the Royal College of psychiatrists including Chair of the Transcultural Psychiatry Special Interest Group and Specialist Advisor for the medical trainee initiative scheme.

Fabida is passionate about engaging people, promoting innovation, research and collaborative working. She will provide clinical and strategic leadership on the board.

Sarah Bloomfield

Sarah Bloomfield

Interim Executive Director of Quality and Safety (Chief Nurse)

Vanessa Devlin

Executive Director of Operations

Vanessa Devlin was appointed as the Executive Director of Operations in September 2019, having been an Associate Director of Operations with the Trust since May 2013. Vanessa has a background in nursing, having been an RMN (registered Mental Health Nurse) with North Birmingham Mental Health Trust for 10 years, before moving over to the management side of care services.

From 2006 up until the time she joined the Trust she held posts within West Midlands Commissioning Boards leading on the strategic development of mental health services within the NHS and Local Authority.  Vanessa is very committed to delivering quality mental health services to our population and believes that service users and carers should be at the forefront of development, delivery and monitoring of our services at all levels.

Dave Tomlinson

Executive Director of Finance

Dave Tomlinson joined the Trust as Executive Director of Finance in April 2017. Dave brings 20 years’ experience as a Director of Finance in the NHS, the vast majority of which has been with large mental health providers. He plays a key role in advising the Board on issues around the Trust’s fiscal performance, information governance and estates. Dave’s experience includes 12 years as Director of Finance at Lancashire Care NHS Foundation Trust where he established the Trust as a £100m turnover provider by bringing together services from seven organisations, led the acquisition of a number of services and established a commercial and property management joint venture that delivered savings of £1m per annum. He has experience in both the private and public sector and during his career has been responsible for a broad portfolio of services in large and complex organisations. Most recently he has enjoyed a successful period as an interim director in acute and mental health trusts.

Information about board members’ declarations of interest is available by contacting:

Email: hannahsullivan@nhs.net

Deprecated: htmlspecialchars(): Passing null to parameter #1 ($string) of type string is deprecated in /sites/bsmhft.platform81.com/files/wp-includes/formatting.php on line 4715