The Board of Trustees is ultimately responsible for the strategic decisions made by the charity and overseeing its performance. The Board works closely with the Chief Executive and the Senior Management Team and has legal accountability for the charity and a responsibility to ensure our assets are used exclusively to further the objectives of the charity.
Ruth qualified as a registered nurse in 1984 at the Nightingale School of Nursing at St Thomas’ Hospital in South London. She remained at Guy’s and St Thomas’ for some 23 years in a variety of nursing roles including ward sister and night sister and in 2002 her career changed direction when she became the general manager for surgical services at GSTT. She left GSTT in 2004 to take up a general manager’s role at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Woolwich and two years later secured her first Executive Director’s post as the Director of Clinical Services at QEH. Ruth then moved onto Moorfield’s Eye Hospital NHS Foundation Trust where she was the Chief Operating Officer from 2009 until 2015 when she retired.
Ruth is married with two grown up children and lives in Chislehurst in Kent. She first became aware of the hospice when she was chair of the Cancer Board at QEH and she was delighted to be asked to join the Board of Trustees. In October of 2019 she was even more delighted when her fellow trustees elected her as the new Chair of the hospice.
Ruth says that the particular knowledge and expertise that she brings to the Board is focused on the following areas; clinical governance, business continuity, monitoring and evaluating performance and nursing, medicine and allied health professions.
Gerald has been involved with the Hospice since the launch of the first community fundraising campaign “Give us a Quid!” back in 1985. He was invited to join the campaign by a friend in his church community in Eltham who also knew Pat Jeavons, co-founder of the charity. Gerald soon became secretary to the charity’s fundraising committee and several years later was invited to join the original Board of Trustees, taking on the role of Company Secretary – a position he continues to hold to this day. He has participated in a range of Hospice-led community fundraising activities over the years and to this day still enjoys collecting with a Hospice bucket and promoting our services to the community.
Gerald’s business background was in IT with the Central Electricity Generating Board, from 1990 onwards with National Grid plc, holding a range of management positions until his early retirement in 2000. To complement his Hospice involvement he has also held voluntary positions as Chair of Governors of a secondary school in Eltham and was a part-time numeracy teacher in two primary schools in Greenwich and Catford.
As well as attending Board meetings Gerald also chairs our Information Governance Committee and is a member of the Voluntary Income Generation Committee. Gerald and his wife Pat live in Eltham and have two sons, currently living in London and Toronto. Gerald’s interests beyond volunteering include amateur dramatics, sailing, the local fitness centre, and Spain.
Gerald feels that his work and school governor experiences have provided useful knowledge and expertise to support the Board in the following areas: information systems projects, change management, quality assurance and performance review.
David has been a longstanding trustee and volunteer in the charitable sector. He joined Greenwich and Bexley Community Hospice as Trustee/Treasurer in March 2019. He is Treasurer of a number of charities including that of and Treasurer of St Stephen Walbrook, one of the City Churches. As a Chartered Accountant David’s early career was spent with Reed Elsevier and then for many years was Group Finance Director at Grayling, an international public relations and public affairs group. Now a consultant, he helps charities and businesses with strategy, organisation of financial operations and financial and stakeholder reporting.
Simon has worked in the banking industry since 2000. His experience spans the UK retail market, offshore corporates & fiduciary institutions; he currently works in the international division of a large global bank, running a team of investment specialists and advisors.
Simon was introduced to the board through the NCVO Step On Board program and became a trustee in December 2017. He is also a member of the investment committee.
Simon and his wife Denise live in Greenwich and have two young sons. Simon says that the particular knowledge and expertise that he brings to the Board is focused on business acumen.
Tim is the Director of Finance and Resources at Shelter UK. He has worked in the charity sector for more than 20 years, holding senior management positions at other charities such as Fairtrade, National Aids Trust and Stonewall. As Chief Operating Officer at Fairtrade, he oversaw the significant growth of Fairtrade certified products in the UK with retail sales exceeding £1.7bn in 2015.
During his early career at Stonewall he was part of a small team who very successfully lobbied for the legislative changes needed to provide many of
the legal equalities now available to lesbians and gay men in the UK. His expertise and experience includes vision and strategy development; strategic delivery; charity finances; managing and developing Human Resources functions; developing and managing IT and web-based projects; Fundraising from Government, Trusts and individuals and managing charity premises & facilities.
After a long career in the City, with more than twenty years’ experience as Head of UK Human Resources for an international investment bank, Paula was fortunate to be able to retire early to pursue other interests. As well as running a large department covering the full range of HR services, her own specialities included employment law, senior recruitment, management training, occupational health, mergers and acquisitions and change management. She was also a trustee of four pension schemes.
In the Autumn of 2007 Paula applied to join the Hospice as a volunteer and was delighted to be invited to become a Trustee and to be able to offer support and share some of her business knowledge and experience with the Management team, in addition to learning more about the work of the hospice and supporting it in a practical way.
In October 2008, Paula was asked to become Deputy Chair and carried out this interesting and rewarding role until she stepped down in May 2019. She remains a Trustee and considers it a great privilege to work as a Board member and to have seen the Hospice develop and expand its range of services and expertise over the years.
Paula enjoys being a member of the Hospice Singing Group and is also an independent specialist on the Board of the Association of Anaesthetists.
Estelle retired from NHS management in 2019 after a 40 year career in health and social care. She trained and qualified as a social worker and worked mostly in hospitals as a front line worker and team manager until around 2000 when she was seconded to Oxleas NHS Trust to set up and run integrated community mental health teams.
From then on she stayed in the NHS, moving from project manager, to service manager and finally to service director. She is particularly passionate about developing older people’s mental health services and also has a strong interest in volunteering having been responsible for Oxleas volunteering teams for many years.
Estelle became interested in the work of the hospice in 2017 after her husband was supported by the community team during the last few months of his life. She has two adult sons and now lives alone in Blackheath and is enjoying finding new hobbies and friends.
Estelle retired from NHS management in 2019 after a 40 year career in health and social care. She trained and qualified as a social worker and worked mostly in hospitals as a front line worker and team manager until around 2000 when she was seconded to Oxleas NHS Trust to set up and run integrated community mental health teams.
From then on she stayed in the NHS, moving from project manager, to service manager and finally to service director. She is particularly passionate about developing older people’s mental health services and also has a strong interest in volunteering having been responsible for Oxleas volunteering teams for many years.
Estelle became interested in the work of the hospice in 2017 after her husband was supported by the community team during the last few months of his life. She has two adult sons and now lives alone in Blackheath and is enjoying finding new hobbies and friends.
Mairead became a trustee of the Hospice in November 2020. She has worked as a lawyer advising charities since 2006 and is a senior lawyer at Bates Wells, one of the leading law firms in the charity sector.
Over the years Mairead has advised charities on a range of legal issues ranging from corporate restructuring to governance disputes and fundraising. She now specialises in data privacy law and advises charities and commercial organisations on data protection compliance including drafting data protection policies, dealing with data security breaches, complex data sharing arrangements and processing children's personal data.
Mairead was previously a trustee of Girls Friendly Society, a charity that works to support girls and young women.
Mairead lives in Greenwich with her husband and three young sons and first became aware of our Hospice through its local fundraising events including the Mini Marathon.
Mary-Clare has been a GP in Greenwich for over 20 years, and is a senior partner in her practice. She grew up in south east London, and always knew she wanted to be a doctor. Her first involvement with the Hospice movement came in her teens, when she was a member of the St Christopher’s Hospice choir in the 1970s (alongside the formidable Dame Cicely Saunders!) Listening to Dame Cicely and other members of the choir speak about their work in palliative care awoke her interest in this area of medicine. After qualifying, Mary-Clare initially trained in paediatrics, but switched to general practice after having her own children. As a GP she has developed special interests in the fields of rheumatology, dermatology and elderly medicine.
Mary-Clare is the college doctor for Morden College in Blackheath, a large charitable residential care home for elderly people. In this area of her work she is privileged to care for people at the end of their lives; helping to support patients and their families at this time is enormously important to her. She has become increasingly involved in palliative care over the years, and was therefore very pleased to be invited to become a Trustee of the Hospice.
Mary-Clare is a longstanding member of the Greenwich LMC (Local Medical Committee) and is also a Deputy Lieutenant of Greater London. She is married to Steven, and has four grown up children.
Lekshmi is a Learning and Development professional with ten years of experience in the public and third sectors working for organisations such as UNICEF UK, Friends of the Earth and Battersea. Qualified in Organisational Design and Development, her interest lies in supporting organisations to adapt to change and meet business challenges by developing creative learning and leadership solutions to meet their needs.
Before working in L&D, she had a career in the Arts and Heritage sector in project management and audience development with an emphasis on diversity and inclusion, engaging and representing a wide range of communities in creative programmes and activities.
Greenwich & Bexley Community Hospice has helped the relatives of many of her close friends living in the boroughs of Greenwich and Bexley to receive exceptional care and support during the last stages of their lives. When a role as trustee came up at the Hospice, she saw an opportunity to contribute to a worthwhile charity that holds a special place in her heart.
Rebecca has worked in the charity sector for 14 years; most of that time was spent at the Multiple Sclerosis Society in supporter care, project management, and data. More recently she has been working with other charities as a database consultant.
She first became aware of the Hospice when she moved to Belvedere from Essex in 2015 and was delighted to have been invited to join the Board in 2020.
She hopes to use her charity data expertise and her experience of fundraising, marketing and supporter care to contribute to the success of the Hospice and in turn make a positive difference to people in the local area.
Komal has worked in the NHS for over 22 years starting her career as a clinic clerk in the oncology unit at UCLH, and has worked across all London Cancer Alliances in their previous forms over those 20 years. She has worked operationally across the majority of services in the acute settings including being the Head of Infection of Prevention and Control at Imperial for 5 years, and as Managing Director of the North East London Cancer Alliance, where she oversaw the delivery of the cancer alliance programme and worked with the regional and national cancer teams. More recently she has returned to a role as St Barts Cancer Centre Deputy Director of Operations, operationally and strategically managing cancer services.
Komal's primary role is being a Mum to two young daughters, and spends her spare time being a taxi driver for her children, and taking an active role in their swimming club, as a parent representative.
Kate Heaps, Chief Executive - Responsible for overseeing the Hospice, ensuring that Hospice resources are used as effectively and efficiently as possible and that the Hospice continues to respond to the needs of the community that we serve.
Wendy Lethem, Nurse Consultant in Palliative Care – Oversees the Hospice’s Hospital Palliative Care Team at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Woolwich and holds SLT responsibility for education and training. As part of her role, Wendy also engages at a senior level with community and hospital based clinicians, managers and commissioners involved in the care of people with palliative care needs with the aim of improving care for anyone who may need end of life care, regardless of diagnosis or care setting and particularly the frail, the very old and those with dementia.
Aneta Saunders, Director of Income Generation - Overall leadership of all voluntary income. Aneta leads the retail and fundraising teams, who work directly with our community to provide much needed funding. With two-thirds of the Hospice costs being met by voluntary income, it is only with support of our donors, fundraisers and shop visitors that we can provide care to those who need us most across Greenwich and Bexley boroughs.
Victor D'Arcy-Smith, Director of Finance and Resources - Overall leadership of the Hospice finances, IT and Estates. Victor is a Chartered Certified Accountant with substantial senior and financial management experience within the charity and private sectors.
Jon Devlin, Associate Director of Business Development & Partnerships - Overall leadership of commissioning and the Hospice’s relationships with partners in the local healthcare system; understanding and reporting the experience people have of the Hospice’s care; volunteering; involving our local communities; our Compassionate Neighbours project; and leading a programme which enables voluntary organisations throughout Bexley to work with the London Borough of Bexley to improve adult social care.
Administration and Support
Kim Murphy, PA to the Chief Executive - Provides secretarial support and assistance to the Chief Executive, the Board of Trustees and Senior Leadership Team within the Hospice, acting on their behalf when necessary and providing assistance with projects.