Other Directors

Carrie Battersby, Borough Director for Newham


Carrie Battersby joined the Trust in July 2003 originally on secondment from South West London and St Georges Mental Health NHS Trust where she was Borough Director for Wandsworth. She was appointed Borough Director for Newham on 1 March 2004.
Carrie embarked on her NHS career in 1981 when she started as an NHS Management Trainee in the south west of England. She came to London in 1985 to work in Riverside Mental Health Unit. She also worked at Northwick Park Hospital. Following a period of studying, she moved to Wandsworth Community Trust where she managed a range of services.

Carrie is trustee for a memorial educational trust in Wandsworth, which was set up following the homicide of a staff member. The trust aims to support multi-disciplinary mental health learning opportunities.


Dean Henderson, Borough Director for City and Hackney


Dean Henderson joined the Trust from the Avon and Wiltshire Mental Health Partnership NHS Trust, where he was General Manager, Service Development.  He had previously been the Locality Manager for the Trust  in  Bath & North East Somerset.

Dean has spent most of his career working in Mental Health.  He qualified as a Social Worker in 1984, in New Zealand, and worked there for 10 years before coming to the UK with his family in 1994.On arriving in the UK and settling in Bristol he trained  as an Approved Social Worker. He went on to hold various Local Authority management roles and continued practising as an Approved Social Worker, until transferring to the NHS, when NHS and Local Authority  Mental Health services in Bath & North East Somerset integrated in 2001.

 

Paul James, Borough Director for Tower Hamlets

Paul James joined Lewisham Social Services in 1976 as a qualified social worker, became a Team Manager there in 1986 and when the integrated Community Mental Health service was formed in 1997 he became the first Joint Community Services Manager.

Paul left Lewisham to become the Deputy Borough Director in Newham in February 2006.

Latterly, Paul was appointed to the Associate Clinical Director post in Newham with responsibility for the Community Mental Health Teams. Paul joined Tower Hamlets in January 2010 becoming Borough Director in April 2010. 

 

Michael McGhee, Service Director for Mental Health for Older People

Michael McGhee was appointed to the Older People’s Services Directorate in November 2009. Prior to this, he was the Service Manager for Mental Health Care of Older People Services in Newham. His background is in social work. He has previously worked for South London and the Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust and has worked for several local authorities across London.

 

Paul Gocke, Director for Community Health Newham

Paul Gocke joined the Trust on 1 February 2011 with the arrival of Community Health Newham's services into ELFT. He previously managed these services when they were part of NHS Newham Primary Care Trust (PCT), before which he held a senior joint management role between the PCT and London Borough of Newham.

Paul has worked as a general manager in the NHS for over thirty years since joining as a graduate management trainee in Liverpool in the late 1970's. During this period he has worked in Acute, Community and Mental Health services' management,  mainly in North East London where he lives. These roles have included Director or Operations/Deputy Chief Executive for an integrated NHS Trust in Redbridge and more recently he was the Chief Executive of North East London Mental Health NHS Trust from its formation in 2000 through till 2005.

Paul is a keen traveller - a lifelong interest which commenced with a period of VSO in Zaire (now DRCongo) in Central Africa.

 

Richard Idle, Service Director of Forensic Services


Richard Idle joined the Trust at the beginning of July 2006. Richard trained as a mental health nurse, in Nottingham. He worked in a range of services before specialising in forensic psychiatry. He spent several years in high secure services helping to establish a service for personality disordered men and managing the national service for men with a learning disability. He worked then at Arnold Lodge, a medium secure service, with one of the major tasks being to commence work on a 30 bed extension, which opened in early 2007. Most recently he ran one of the national pilot sites delivering Dangerous and Severe Personality Disorder services.

 

John Hill, Director of Estates, Facilities and Capital Development

John joined the Trust in January 2007 as Deputy Director and was promoted to Director of Estates, Facilities and Capital Development in April 2011.

He is a qualified Mechanical Engineer and following a two year spell in the NHS at Newham General Hospital (1984-1986) he went to Saudi Arabia for a year to commission a new general Hospital for the Saudi Health care system. He then spent the next 7.5 years in Australia working on both Healthcare and private sector projects.

John returned to England in 1994 as the Estates Manager at St Georges Hospital Redbridge and then joined Barts and the London NHS Trust as the Head of Estates and Facilities in 1999 before joining the Trust in 2007.


Mary Foulkes, Director of Human Resources

Mary joined the Trust in January 2008. She worked as Human Resources (HR) Director at Timberland where she was responsible for delivering HR services in eight European countries. She led major organisation development and culture change projects. Mary was previously a Director at HSBC Investment Banking and Ford Motor Company. 


David Kirby, Director of Psychological Therapies

David Kirby joined the Trust originally on secondment from West London Mental Health Trust (Forensic Service) where he was Head of Psychology. He trained at the Maudsley Hospital/Institute of Psychiatry and worked in adult mental health at King’s College Hospital. He was previously Head of Psychology for Ealing, Hammersmith and Fulham Mental Health Trust. In 1984, he joined the new regional medium secure service for west and north-west London as Head of Psychology. He has worked in the NHS since 1974.


Sarah Wilson, Director of Specialist Services

Sarah joined the Trust in August 2008. Her recent experience was in the South West, in performance management at Avon and Wiltshire Partnership Trust. Prior to this she led Bristol’s Drug Strategy team for 3 years. Sarah started her NHS career in East London, in a range of HR roles, before moving into operational management with Specialist Addiction Services.