Board
Our board is made up of people from a range of occupations and backgrounds, and they help to shape our strategy and priorities as well as scrutinise us and oversee our work.
Patrick Peal, Chair
Patrick retired in June 2021 from leading the East Anglian Air Ambulance. Before becoming its Chief Executive in 2014, Patrick had been a trustee for many years after helping to found the Charity in 2000.
An engineering graduate, Patrick worked for Group Lotus for twenty years, first as an R&D engineer working on automotive, motorsport and aviation projects, before becoming Group Head of Communications. From there he started a Norwich-based PR agency which went on to become one of the largest and most successful in the east of England.
Linda Bainton
Linda has worked for a wide range of national and local bodies including Norfolk County Council, Norfolk Health and Wellbeing Board, Lowestoft College, the General Medical Council, and the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists. This helped her develop a number of skills including strategy development, strategic planning, policy development, partnership working, governance, and learning and development. Linda specialises in working with statutory organisations like Healthwatch Norfolk and thrives on constructive challenge, promoting openness, transparency and accountability
Elaine Bailey
Elaine has been a diagnostic radiographer for over 40 years during which time, she gained extensive strategic, governance and operational management experience with the NHS and independent healthcare sectors. For the last 10 years, she has worked on home diagnostic services as well developing in-reach service for prisons and young offenders institutes.
Vivienne Clifford-Jackson
Vivienne has a background in nursing, education, mental health and community services including the voluntary sector. She is a former South Norfolk district councillor, and is a volunteer and supervisor for Cruse Bereavement Care, as well as a board member for Voluntary Norfolk. Vivienne believes in evidence-based healthcare and transparent decision-making.
Willie Cruickshank
Willie has worked across health and social care in Norfolk for the last decade. As the Chief Executive of the Norfolk & Waveney Health Innovation and Education Cluster, Willie brought together organisations from health, care and academia to develop innovative approaches to tackling some of our region’s most pressing health-related concerns. This led to the development of the Norfolk & Suffolk Dementia Alliance which Willie led for 6 years. During this period, Willie contributed to the development of dementia related strategies at regional and national levels and was Chair of the East of England Dementia Network as well as advisor to the Eastern Academic Health Science Network.
Now the Chief Executive of a Norwich-based company providing residential care and supported living for people over 65, Willie has first-hand experience of the challenges facing the social care sector.
Andrew Hayward
Andrew was a GP at East Harling from 1988 until 2015. He is retired from clinical practice but is still in touch with primary care as he carries out GP appraisals for NHS England, giving him a really good insight into current issues for GPs and patients.
His career as a GP was highly varied. In addition to the usual practice work he has commanded a Territorial Army medical unit, taught medical students, delivered babies at home, attended road accidents as part of NARS and been a locality lead for the CCG, and in his spare time acts with the East Harling Theatre Group alongside his wife Jo.
Chris Humphris
Chris retired in 2018 after an extensive career in NHS management, together with short spells in Adult Social Care (running the Joint Learning Disability service for Norfolk County Council) and as General Manager of a 38 home national Care Home company (Regency Care, based in Newcastle).
During his NHS career Chris undertook senior roles at Chief Officer level in Warwickshire, Northumberland, Cambridgeshire, and Norfolk. Whilst he worked across a whole range of services, his particular interest and expertise was probably in commissioning / planning and the provision of community health (and social care) services.
Mary Ledgard
Analysis has been a core theme in Mary’s professional career and in voluntary work since she retired. Mary started out working on international politics and economics as a journalist before moving on to organisation development. This transferable skill has enabled her to follow the development of the health service and to carry out or support research. Although she has experience in both social care and research, Mary sees herself very much as an all- rounder.
Chris MacDonald
Formerly Operations Manager at Healthwatch Norfolk, Chris’s role required her to quickly identify and establish a working relationship with a number of health and social care organisations across the region. At the same time, she developed and implemented all the necessary policies relating to property management, recruitment, governance, finance and communications. Chris was also responsible for successfully gaining charitable status for the organisation, so she has a strong knowledge of Healthwatch Norfolk for her trustee role.
Bridget Penhale
Bridget has a background in social work and adult social care (specifically older people related) having worked as a social worker and social work manager for some 15 years during the first part of her career. Much of that work related to social work with older people in a variety of settings (urban, rural, patch/district-based and hospital-related) and was in several areas of Norfolk. Bridget undertook a mid-career change to academia in 1996 and worked at 3 universities for the remainder of her career. She initially worked at the University of Hull in the Social Work Department, then at the University of Sheffield (School of Nursing and Midwifery) in order to focus more on research and finally held a post at UEA (School of Health Sciences) for the last 10 years of her career.
Louise Smith
Louise was Norfolk Director Public Health from 2015 to 2023. This gave her Board level experience in strategic planning, policy development, and partnership working.
She is now national lead for professional appraisal and standards, specialist post-graduate training, and clinical quality and governance, as a Deputy Director in the UK Health Security Agency. As the UKHSA Caldicott Guardian, she has a specialist interest in getting the balance right between sharing data to improve clinical care and services while at the same time protecting patient’s confidentiality.
She trained as a doctor in Edinburgh and trained in labour ward as an Obstetrician Gynaecologist before entering public health 25 years ago. These days she is committed to developing people and so, in her spare time, she works as an executive coach supporting on career development.
