Board of Directors

Peter joined us as Chair on 1 April 2018, having previously been Chair of South West London and St George's Mental Health Trust.

Peter is also a Board Member of the Mental Health Network and the England Liaison for the International Initiative for Mental Health Leadership. He is the founder of Common Cause Consulting, a research and design consultancy that brings organisations together to promote social, economic and emotional well-being. He has written numerous reports and delivered programmes that change the narrative around mental health, build community resilience and create cultures of learning across organisational boundaries.

Peter is a Visiting Fellow at the John Madejski Centre for Reputation at Henley Business School and Co-Chair of the health and Care LGBTQ+ Leaders’ Network.
 

Amanda is currently the Deputy Chief Executive and Director of Finance for Brighton Dome and Brighton Festival. Amanda is an experienced senior director having worked in the arts, heritage and charity sectors for over 25 years.

Amanda is a KPMG-alumni and a Fellow of the Institute of Chartered Accountants. She has been passionate throughout her career to help cultural organisations achieve long-term financial sustainability and resilience, and promotes the powerful role of arts and heritage to improve health and wellbeing.

Amanda holds a first-class honours degree in accounting with computing from the University of Ulster together with a postgraduate diploma in professional accounting and has particular experience of delivering organisational change through extensive modernisation programmes and of delivering major capital redevelopment and regeneration projects.

Before moving to Sussex from her native Northern Ireland, Amanda was Director of Finance and Planning at National Museums Northern Ireland. 

Amanda is a director of Coast to Capital LEP, a member of the Executive Board of the Brighton & Hove Economic Partnership, chair of The Sussex Archaeological Society (Sussex Past) and a trustee of the Sam Moore Fund.
 

Jo joined us non-executive director on 1 November 2018. 

Jo is founder and director of Inclusive Professions. As an executive coach specialising in inclusion, she is passionate about working with firms to attract, retain, develop and increase the number of women and black and ethnic minority professionals in senior and leadership roles within their business.

Jo draws on her unique professional and personal experience as a corporate lawyer, director, and strategic talent management and development expert working with a range of a diverse range of organisations in professional service firms, consultancy and not-for-profit. Jo has held senior positions in Arthur Andersen, Eversheds, DLA Piper, BDO and Bircham Dyson Bell LLP.  

Jo brings substantial experience at board-level and a wealth of non-executive director experience including: Law Society of England and Wales, Council and Standards Board member, chair of Education and Training Committee and council member for the National Association for Mental Health (MIND).

Jo is also a writer. The third edition of her book 'How to Make Partner and Still Have a Life' was published in 2020.

Carrie joined us as a non-executive director in April 2021. 

Carrie is a professor of applied behavioural medicine at Brighton and Sussex Medical School, and a chartered psychologist and associate fellow of the British Psychological Society. She has previously been a member of the British Psychological Society Research Board.

In 2019 Carrie was appointed as chair of the South East and Central Regional Advisory Committee for the National Institute for Health Research. 

Alongside numerous publications and reports, Carrie is lead editor of the 3rd edition of the Cambridge Handbook of Psychology, Health and Medicine (Cambridge University Press) published in 2019. Her recent research interests centre around better understanding the health inequalities amongst marginalised communities.
 

Nitin joined us as associate non-executive director and is a member of the Finance and Investment Committee.

With over 11 years of experience at TUI Group where he is part of the senior leadership team and a member of various executive boards, Nitin brings extensive commercial, strategy, analytics and finance experience to Sussex Partnership. Nitin is a qualified accountant with a B.Sc. in electrical engineering and computer science, an MBA and a masters in finance from London Business School. 

Anna is a visiting professor of ethics and regulation at the University of Surrey. Anna qualified as a speech and language therapist in 1981 and worked in learning disabilities services before moving into higher education, research and non-executive roles. 

Involving users in the design and delivery of services underpinned her early career and she continues to be a passionate advocate of co-design and co-production in service delivery, policymaking and research.

Anna was chair of the Health and Care Professions Council for nine years, and is currently a non-executive director at Health Education England and the Kent Surrey and Sussex Academic Health Science Network, in addition to other roles in the health, care and legal sectors.

Anna has a long-standing interest in quality improvement in health care. She has been involved in national projects on clinical audit, governance and service evaluation, and is a founding member of the Q Community, a 2,500 strong, UK wide quality improvement network led by the Health Foundation. Anna has a strong research background and continues to contribute to research in regulation internationally as well as in the UK. She was awarded the CBE for services to health and care in 2015. 
 

Kevin has 25 years’ experience working in health and social care in the UK - 15 as executive director at CGL where he looked after the strategic growth and governance of the organisation. He specialises in leadership, culture, patient involvement and quality improvement and has led large transformation programmes as diverse as mergers, organisational restructures, digital transformation, and rebranding.

Kevin currently works as a consultant in the not-for-profit sector. He is passionate about social justice and addressing the structural unfairness that sees our most deprived communities have much poorer health and life expectancy. He is equally passionate about ensuring our health and social care services are responsive to the needs of our communities, are of the highest quality and address the systemic barriers that reduce accessibility.

Jane is a registered mental health nurse and has worked in mental health and learning disability services since 1990.

Initially starting her career as a healthcare assistant, Jane later qualified as a mental health nurse and has since worked in various clinical, managerial and academic roles, across mental health, learning disability, and forensic services. 

Jane was our chief nursing officer before being appointed chief executive in April 2022 and prior to that she was chief nurse and executive director of quality and safety at Hertfordshire Partnership NHS Foundation Trust. Jane was previously a board member of NHS Confederation’s Mental Health Network and a member of the Mental Health and Learning Disability Directors of Nursing Council Forum Steering Group.

Jane was awarded a doctorate from Kings College London following a research study into the mental health needs of young people in street gangs.

Teresa joined us in January 2023 as our Chief Nursing Officer. Teresa is a registered mental health nurse and has worked in mental health services since 1997, both in Kent and in London.  

Teresa started her registered nursing career as a staff nurse on an acute mental health ward and later worked in various clinical, managerial and professional leadership roles across mental health services including youth, adult and older adult services.  

Teresa has a post qualifying degree in Psycho-social interventions for Psychosis and an MBA in Health care Leadership. Prior to joining Sussex Partnership, Teresa worked at Kent and Medway Partnership Trust, as Head of Service for Older Adults and Deputy Director of Nursing and Practice. 

Dan has over 20 years' experience in healthcare communications. Having begun his career at South Thames Regional Health Authority, he was head of communications and media at South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust for nearly 15 years. In this role he was involved in developing the communications and engagement programme for King's Health Partners Academic Health Sciences Centre a collaboration between King's College London and three NHS Foundation Trusts: Guy's and St Thomas', King's College Hospital and South London and Maudsley. 

Dan also coordinated a Bafta winning four-part Channel 4 documentary series called ‘Bedlam’, broadcast in Autumn 2013, which gave unprecedented access to NHS mental health services.

In December 2019 Dan became a Visiting Research Fellow at the Centre for Health Communications Research at New Bucks University.

You can find him on Twitter @Dan_Charlton1

John was appointed as chief delivery officer in October 2021. John holds a BSc from Cardiff University and a master's degree in social work from the University of Sussex. 

John started his career as a social worker within older people's mental health services in Brighton and Hove and has worked within mental health services in Sussex since 2002.

John has worked in a number of operational management roles including operational director for adult services at Sussex Partnership.

His previous roles have included head of service for older adults and neurodevelopmental services at South West London and St George's Mental Health NHS Trust, and chief operating officer for Brighton and Hove Clinical Commissioning Group.

Usman Niazi joined Sussex Partnership NHS Foundation Trust as Chief Finance Officer in April 2022 and alongside this role took up the role of Deputy Chief Executive in July 2022.

Prior to this Usman was Chief Finance Officer and Financial Senior Responsible Officer at NHS South East London Clinical Commissioning Group and Integrated Care Service.

Throughout his career in health, Usman has led corporate and finance functions in a range of complex NHS organisations, including acute, Clinical Commissioning Groups and strategic health authorities; working with frontline teams to balance the need between high-quality service delivery and financial sustainability.

Gurprit has worked in the NHS since qualifying in medicine from Cambridge University in 1992. He subsequently trained in psychiatry in London before moving to Sussex where he has held multiple consultant psychiatrist roles. Currently he provides consultant input into a psychiatric intensive care unit.

He has experience within the third sector having been the national lead for mental health in a national charity, and has held multiple senior posts in leading and managing health services within the NHS. He has senior qualifications in healthcare leadership, including digital healthcare leadership which have informed his role as a chief clinical information officer leading the global digital exemplar programme within Sussex and more widely as the chair of the South East Region Digital Working Group. 

Gurprit chairs the Sussex regional forum for digital clinical leaders across health and social care, and clinically leads the Sussex Shared Care Record Programme to digitally connect patients, clinicians and create a linked dataset to support population health, commissioning, service development and research.

Claire joined us as deputy director of workforce and organisational development in December 2019 leading on workforce supply and employee relations. She took up the role of interim chief people officer in February 2022.

Claire has over 20 years experience in human resources working in commissioning, acute, mental health and community NHS Trusts, along with higher education and local government experience. 

Claire is a chartered member of the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development, and holds an MSc in HR leadership. She also holds a masters in the laws of employment from the University of Leicester, and specialises in trade union law and employee relations. 

Claire joined us as medical director for transformation in March 2020, working clinically at Langley Green Hospital before moving to the intensive support team supporting patients who have been admitted to private providers outside of Sussex. Claire took up the role of interim chief medical officer in January 2022.

Claire was clinical director for learning disability and mental health services in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea for Central and North West London NHS Foundation Trust having been a general adult consultant psychiatrist there since 2008.

Claire has a long-standing interest in improving mental health services and clinical leadership, completing an executive MBA at Imperial College and a leadership fellowship with NHS London as part of her psychiatric training.

Dominic joined us in September 2017, having been in a similar role at Brighton and Sussex University Hospitals NHS Trust for almost five years. Dominic has worked in the NHS since 1989, in the acute and mental health sectors and spent five years in the predecessor organisations to the Care Quality Commission, leading their mental health programmes.

Colin is a registered counselling psychologist, accredited cognitive behavioural therapist and has over 15 years clinical and operational experience working in mental health and learning disability services. 

Colin graduated with a doctorate in counselling psychology and psychotherapeutic practice from the University of Surrey in 2006 and subsequently undertook a masters in business administration at the University of Bath. 

He has been the director of mental health collaborative Ppogramme for NHS Sussex since January 2021 and prior to that was the service director for mental health and learning disabilities at Dorset Healthcare. He has significant operational and strategic leadership experience managing a range of services including IAPT, CAMHS and adult community and inpatient services.

Colin has a passion for improving the quality of care for people who use our services and has delivered significant transformational change at scale and in partnership with health, social care and third sector partners and champions coproduction with people who use our services.

Colin was seconded to the post of interim Director of Integration and Partnerships in September 2022 for six months.