Board Members

Below you will find a list of all of our executive and non-executive board members.

Chair

• Mike Bell - Chair

Non-Executive Directors

• Binka Layton
• Godfrey Allen
• Dr Nav Chana MBE
• Harry Bright
• Dr Pui-Ling Li
• Sarah Higgins
• Steve James, Senior Independent Director

Executive Directors

• Ben Travis, Chief Executive
• Dr Vanessa Purday, Chief Medical Officer
• Louise Crosby, Chief Nurse
• Miranda Jenkins, Chief Operating Officer
• Meera Nair, Chief People Officer
• Spencer Prosser, Chief Financial Officer
• Kate Anderson, Director of Corporate Affairs
• Sandra Iskander, Acting Chief Strategy, Partnerships and Transformation Officer

Please note the following are co-opted / non-voting members of the Trust board: Kate Anderson, Sarah Higgins, Miranda Jenkins, Sandra Iskander.

 

Mike Bell has more than 25 years of experience in the NHS, including the role of Chair at Croydon Health Services NHS Trust, which he will continue in as a dual role.

His previous roles include 11 years at Strategic Health Authorities where he was Vice Chair of NHS London. He also recently served for a year as Interim Chair of Barking, Havering and Redbridge University Hospitals NHS Trust to support the Trust to develop a new strategic direction and leadership model.

Over the past nine years since joining Croydon Health Services, Mike has helped lead them out of financial special measures and has held the Trust Board to account to deliver continued improvements in the quality and access to care in and out of hospital.

In all of these roles he has helped to shape hospital and community services to deliver higher quality care and helped lead reforms to look after the health and care of local communities through the development of active partnerships between Trusts, with local authorities, primary care and community organisations. He brings an unerring commitment to tackling health inequalities in all his work.

Outside of his work directly with trusts, Mike is also the director of a research and consultancy company, MBARC Ltd, which works with central and local government and the NHS on issues relating to social exclusion, specialising in working with marginalised communities.

Mike is also currently the Chair of the NHS London Chairs Non-Executive Directors Anchor Network.

 

Ben Travis was appointed chief executive with effect from April 2018. He was formerly chief executive of Oxleas NHS Foundation Trust. Under his leadership, Oxleas achieved an impressive CQC rating of good or outstanding across every single service domain while remaining in financial balance.

Prior to his role as chief executive, he was acting chief executive officer at Oxleas and before that he was director of finance for four years. he has held previous senior positions within both the NHS and the business services sector.

 

 

Dr Vanessa Purday  joined our Trust as Chief Medical Officer in June 2023. She is a practising consultant anaesthetist with a specialist interest in intensive care medicine, with almost 30 years experience working in the NHS.

She joined us from East Kent Hospitals University NHS Foundation Trust, where she held a number of positions alongside her clinical work. These included Deputy Chief Medical Officer, Site Medical Director for the Queen Elizabeth Queen Mother Hospital, Clinical Director for Surgery and Anaesthetics and Medical Director leading the Covid Recovery Programme. She has recently completed the NHS Leadership Academy Nye Bevan programme, and been awarded the NHS Leadership Academy Award in Executive Healthcare Leadership.

 

Louise Crosby was appointed Chief Nurse with effect from March 2022.

After qualifying in 1986, Louise worked as a nurse at Whittington Health NHS Trust, Barts Health NHS Trust and St George’s University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, specialising in cardiology. She has held a number of senior positions and was Director of Nursing at Newham University Hospital for Barts Health NHS Trust before joining Lewisham and Greenwich NHS Trust,. Prior to this, she was Director of Nursing at St Bartholomew’s Hospital, which achieved a rating of “Outstanding” from the Care Quality Commission.

 

Miranda Jenkins was appointed Chief Operating Officer in June 2022, following a year on secondment as Executive Director of Performance and Elective Care. Miranda has 20 years’ experience in operations, service improvement and strategy, spanning hospital and community services, clinical networks and the voluntary sector. Before joining the Trust, Miranda was Deputy Director of the Evelina London Clinical Group at Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust (GSTT). Miranda joined the NHS as a graduate trainee and has always worked in south east London, including 12 years at GSTT and six years at King’s College Hospital NHS Foundation Trust.

 

Meera Nair is Lewisham and Greenwich NHS Trust's Chief People Officer. She came to us from Oxleas NHS Foundation Trust, where she was Director of Workforce and Quality Improvement. Before this, she held senior roles at Barnet Enfield and Haringey Mental Health Trust, University College London NHS Foundation Trust and Basildon and Thurrock NHS Foundation Trust. Meera has over 15 years’ NHS experience, and previously worked in the private sector as Head of Human Resources for various organisations in India and the US.

 

Spencer Prosser joins the Trust in August 2019 as an experienced Chief Finance Officer who has operated at Board level for 17 years with extensive understanding of governance and legal compliance.   Spencer has previously acted as the finance lead for large STP, and is comfortable with system working and balance between pursuing organisational and system goals.

Spencer brings a wealth of experience to the role having been a CFO at a number of high profile providers (including Brighton & Sussex University Hospitals NHS Trust), and has most recently worked as the Regional Finance Director at NHSI for the South region.

 

Kate Anderson joined the Trust’s finance team in June 2015, Kate spent 14 years working as a qualified accountant in KPMG’s Public Sector Audit team working with NHS organisations in both audit and advisory capacity.  Kate is skilled in financial and governance matters and is pleased to bringing this expertise to the Trust as its Director of Corporate Affairs.

In her current role Kate will drive forward the Trust’s arrangements for ensuring effective corporate governance, and will also take on responsibility for the Trust’s communication and emergency planning teams.

 

Sandra Iskander  joined the Trust in 2019. She has 20 years of management experience in the NHS and before joining the Trust was Chief of Staff in the NHS England Directorate of Strategy and Innovation where she supported a number of national policy programmes. Previous roles span operational management in acute services, commissioning and health services research. She joined the NHS in 2002 as a general graduate management trainee. 

 

 

 

Dr Pui-Ling Li is a Consultant in Public Health and a general practitioner. As a senior public health physician, she has over 20 years of experience in the delivery of health, service improvements and system change at local, regional, national and international level. She has held a number of Board and Executive Director level roles in the NHS and in Government Departments including Chief Medical Officer and Chief Scientist in Department for Work & Pensions.

She has extensive experience in raising the quality of health care in primary and secondary care settings and is always looking for an innovative approach to deliver better health outcomes. She has also mixed her professional career with a variety of roles in the charitable sector. She has an enduring commitment to front line clinical practice and in 2020 returned to practice as a GP in the East End of London.

 

Binka Layton is a qualified accountant, having spent over 10 years in the private sector. She is skilled in financial and commercial matters and is pleased to bringing this expertise to the Trust.

Her main interests are in technical accounting and tax issues, having worked as an auditor in various roles. Binka also spent the last 8 years working as a Lay Member in the Chartered Institute of Taxation, looking at public complaints against members of the Institute.

 

 

Harry Bright was appointed as a non-executive director in January 2018. He has over forty years of international banking experience, holding several senior executive positions in the UK and abroad. Harry’s most recent role was a member of the Senior Management Executive of Santander UK plc until his retirement in January 2022.

During his professional career Harry was involved in the financing of critical UK infrastructure from 1994. Harry holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in Financial Services from London Guildhall University. 

 

Sarah Higgins is associate non-executive director for patient experience. Sarah joined the Lewisham and Greenwich Trust board in April 2018 having served as a volunteer on the Patient Welfare Forum since 2016, a grass roots team dedicated to supporting patients and staff at Lewisham Hospital.    
 
Outside of her work for Lewisham and Greenwich NHS Trust, Sarah runs media relations for the European exchange traded fund business of State Street Global Advisors, an international asset manager.  Prior to joining SSGA, Sarah spent twelve years at Russell Investments, where she held a variety of roles spanning public relations, marketing and communications. Sarah has an MA in modern European languages (French and German) from the University of Cambridge.

 

Godfrey Allen  joined us having recently completed his term as a Non-Executive Director at Croydon Health Services, having previously been a NED at Wandsworth PCT and chair of NHS SW London Support Services Partnership Board.

As the former (founding) Chair of South Thames Colleges Group, Godfrey remains a NED at two international non-governmental organisations, including the International Association of Youth & Family Judges & Magistrates. Godfrey has held CEO and MD roles in the public, private and charitable sectors. He holds a MSc in Public Service Management and is a Fellow of the Institute of Directors, Chartered Institute of Management.

 

Dr Nav Chana MBE  is currently a Non-Executive Director at Kingston Hospital NHS Foundation Trust. He has been a GP in Merton for 25 years and has recently moved into the Lewisham area.

As Chairman of the National Association of Primary Care he has co-led the development of the ‘primary care home’ model which is one of the new care model programmes endorsed by NHS England. Dr Chana has had a varied career in healthcare education. Most recently he has been the Clinical Adviser for the workforce stream of NHS England’s New Care Models Programme, and he continues to work as an adviser to Health Education England (South London).

Nav was previously a Director of Education Quality (DEQ) for Health Education South London, and prior to that the Postgraduate Dean for General Practice and Community Based Education from 2010.

 

Steve James was appointed as a NED in June 2020. A qualified social worker, he worked for Lewisham and Southwark local authorities before becoming Chief Executive of the Avenues Group, a leading provider of social care from which he has recently retired. His particular interest is encouraging improved joint working between the Health and Social Care systems.