The trust board manages the trust. It consists of non-executive directors and executive directors.
Chairman and Non-Executive Directors
Our non-executive directors are drawn from the local community and are appointed through a recruitment process managed by NHS Improvement following advertisements in the local press.
Generally, non-executive directors are selected with a view to representing the cultural, ethnic and business composition of the local community. They are expected to bring the community's perspective to the management of the trust and to provide an independent overview of the work of the trust's executive functions.
Phil Townsend, Chairman
Appointed chairman in February 2020, Phil is the longest serving board member and was vice chair for five years and a non-executive director since December 2011.
Phil comes from a commercial background, having spent over 30 years in the complex telecommunications industry, focused on IT and business transformation.
He chairs the board meetings and board development. Phil attends remuneration and finance and performance committees as a standing member.
Edwin Josephs, Vice Chair and Senior Independent Director
Edwin joined the board as a non-executive director in November 2020. He qualified as a chartered management accountant in 1984 and has extensive knowledge of corporate governance, risk and assurance and has held a number of senior financial positions.
Edwin has also held senior roles in the public and charity sectors, including at the National Consumer Council and the Legal Services Board and was previously a non-executive board member for Chartered Institute of Management Accountants (CIMA) UK.
Edwin is no stranger to the NHS, having worked for a hospital trust in Buckinghamshire earlier in his career in a variety of roles, including finance and auditing and senior leadership. He has lived in Abbots Langley for 23 years.
Professor Ann Griffin, Vice Chair
Professor Ann Griffin joined the board in July 2022 with special responsibility for the trust’s teaching hospital status. She is a deputy director of University College London Medical School and both a doctor of medicine, on a GP career break, and a doctor of education.
As a clinical professor in medical education research, she brings significant experience and expertise in healthcare education, research and consultancy, as both an academic and a healthcare practitioner.
Ann is a member of the trust's people, education and research committee and provides oversight to the board on strategy, leadership, finance, and governance, with particular emphasis on championing excellence in education.
Harvey Griffiths, Non-Executive Director
Harvey Griffiths was appointed to the board in January 2022. He is the chief executive of Horizon, an institutional investment firm in social, affordable and market rent housing.
Harvey brings over 25 years' public sector investment, management and operations experience to the trust and has many years' experience of successful start-ups, new business creation, origination and acquisitions.
He is a non-executive director at a specialist commercial energy and utility procurement company, Inteb Managed Services Ltd, and has served as a governor and chair of finance at Watford Girls Grammar School since 2015.
Natalie Edwards, Non-Executive Director
Natalie was appointed non-executive director in 2019. She has 20 years' extensive HR experience working in both strategic and operational roles.
She has a strong track record of delivering business focused people strategies and transformation change projects.
Natalie chairs the trust's people, education and research committee, is a member of the remuneration committee, and is the nominated reserve for the audit committee.
Heather Moulder, Non-Executive Director
Heather joined the Board in 2023 and is a trained nurse, midwife and health visitor.
Heather has over 20 years' NHS Executive Board experience in both provider and commissioning organisations, including Deputy Chief Executive for St Albans and Harpenden and Hertsmere Primary Care Trusts and NHS England Director of Nursing and Quality for Hertfordshire and South Midlands.
Heather held the position of Clinical Commissioning Group Clinical Chair and established her own consultancy firm in 2015.
Helen Davis, Associate Non-Executive Director
Helen was appointed as an associate executive director in 2020. She has over 30 years’ experience of the NHS working in both operational delivery and in a strategic advisory capacity.
Helen has a background in all stages of the NHS estates and capital investment processes from strategic planning, through to business case approval, procurement and into construction and operation.
She was previously UK Head of Health for an international advisory company and was the private sector Director on two NHS/private Strategic Estates Partnerships.
In addition, Helen is a local Justice of the Peace.
Catherine Pelley, MBE, Associate Non-Executive Director
Catherine joined the board as an associated non-executive director in 2024. In 2021 Catherine was awarded an MBE for services to nurse leadership.
Catherine has worked in the Hertfordshire area across various roles in her career, so is familiar with our patch, our partners and our population.
In the early years of her career she was a staff nurse at Mount Vernon before training as a health visitor.
Our team of executive directors are responsible for the day-to-day management of the trust in accordance with the trust's policy and national, statutory or other relevant guidance.
The executive directors are full-time employees of the trust. It is a requirement that the board has a chief executive, chief financial officer, chief nurse, chief medical officer, and one other, who are eligible to vote. It may also appoint additional board members to cover other functions, but they will not be voting members of the board.
Matthew Coats, Chief Executive Officer
Matthew Coats joined as chief executive officer in July 2022 after three decades covering a range of senior roles in the NHS and the Civil Service.
Matthew has led departments and implemented national change programmes in the Cabinet Office, the Ministry of Justice, the Home Office and the Department of Health. He has managed large teams and equally large budgets. Prior to that, he was deputy chief executive at a multi-site hospital trust.
Matthew lives in west Hertfordshire and was motivated to apply for the chief executive role because it is his local hospital trust and because he is inspired by the ethos of the NHS.
Michael van der Watt, Chief Medical Officer
Michael joined the trust in 2000 as a consultant cardiologist, becoming divisional director of medicine in 2012, and was then appointed as the trust's chief medical officer in April 2013.
He initially qualified in Cape Town, South Africa, and specialised in internal medicine at Groote Schuur Hospital, Cape Town. Michael immigrated to the UK in 1995 to specialise in cardiology, and has developed his particular interests in interventional cardiology, echocardiography, and pacemaker implantation.
His responsibilities include providing strong management and leadership to improve patient experience, and maintaining the trust's commitment to safe and efficient patient care.
Rodney Pindai, Acting Chief Financial Officer
Rodney joined West Herts permanently in December 2018, as our Director of Contracts and Commerce (Deputy Chief Finance Officer). He has been acting as Chief Finance Officer since March 2024.
As a CIMA qualified accountant, Rodney has a long track record for highly effective finance management within complex, organisations facing challenging budgetary pressures.
Rodney began his career as an NHS graduate finance trainee in 2006 in Brighton, Sussex, where he worked across a number of sites, and quickly developed a strong sense of pride in working for the NHS.
Since then, has held a number of senior leadership roles including at Hillingdon Hospitals NHSFT and is a specialist in finance, efficiency, contracts and commercial partnership and development work.
Kelly McGovern, Chief Nurse
Kelly McGovern joined West Herts as chief nurse in July 2023. Previously, Kelly was deputy chief nurse and director of nursing of Broomfield site for Mid and South Essex NHS Foundation Trust – one of the largest acute trusts in the country with 15,000 staff.
In addition to her trust-wide role, Kelly was the director of nursing for Broomfield Hospital and also urgent and emergency care clinical director.
A local resident, Kelly qualified as a nurse in 2005 and has gained a breadth of clinical leadership experience and held professional nurse leadership positions as well as more operational roles. She has worked at The Royal Marsden NHS Foundation Trust, East and North Herts NHS Trust and latterly for Mid and South Essex NHS Foundation Trust.
Rachel Thorman, Chief Operating Officer
Rachel joined West Herts in May 2024 as the chief operating officer. Before taking on the role, Rachel was the Chief Operational Information Officer at the Royal Marsden NHS Foundation Trust, having joined in 2020 to run the Private Care Division.
Rachel started her career as a management consultant for GE Healthcare, before moving into the NHS in a sector transformation role for North West London Integrated Care System.
Rachel also led the Division of Medicine and Emergency Care at Hillingdon Hospital.
Saira Shah, Chief People Officer
Profile to follow
Paul Bannister, Chief Information Officer
Paul was appointed chief information officer in 2019. Paul is a qualified accountant with 15 years' NHS experience and brings extensive experience in commissioning, financial and acute contract management to his current role.
He has held previous roles at North East London Commissioning Support Unit (NELCSU) as director of contracting and analytics and as chief operating officer, building the largest and most successful commissioning support unit in England.
Chief Redevelopment Officer
Profile to follow
Toby Hyde, Chief Strategy and Collaboration Officer
Toby joined West Herts in April 2023 from NHS England where he was national deputy director of strategy.
Toby has a wealth of experience gained as deputy director of transformation and programme director for integrated care at Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust, and previously worked at Hammersmith and Fulham Clinical Commissioning Group as associate director of strategy and primary care.
He is also a graduate of the NHS management training scheme and the Nye Bevan programme for executive leaders at the NHS Leadership Academy.
Dr Niall Keenan, Divisional Director for Medicine services
Dr Niall Keenan joined the Trust as Consultant Cardiologist in 2014. He has been Clinical Director and Associate Medical Director for Quality and Innovation and took over as Divisional Director of Medicine in April 2024. He has also led our innovative Virtual Ward Programme.
He trained in Oxford, London, Paris, Stevenage and Watford, and specialises in multimodality cardiac imaging (echo, CT, CMR) as well as cardio-oncology and assessment of cardiac fitness for surgery. In additional to his roles at West Herts, he chairs the Clinical Advisory Group for Virtual Wards in NHS England East of England, part of the Urgent and Emergency Care (UEC) improvement team. He sits on the NHS England National Steering Group for Virtual Wards. He is President-Elect of the British Society for Cardiovascular Magnetic Resonance and a member of the finance committee of the British Cardiovascular Society (BCS). He is a member of the Scientific Documents (Guidelines) Committee of the European Association of Cardiovascular Imaging (EACVI).
He lives locally with his family.
Mr William Forson, Divisional Director for Women’s and Children’s services
William Forson is a consultant obstetrician gynaecologist with over 20 years’ experience in obstetrics and gynaecology and has worked for several healthcare organisations of various sizes across the UK.
He has been principal and lead investigator for several research projects in HPV and cervical disease. William is currently running a self-sampling pilot for cervical screening for the Scottish Government.
Involved in setting standards for gynaecology services in low resource countries, William has a diverse background and is trained in emergency obstetric skills, antenatal and postnatal skills.
He is a member of the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists, the Appointments Advisory Group and the Global Health Division.
Dr Shajeel Khan, Divisional Director for Emergency Medicine services
Profile to follow
Mr Drostan Cheetham, Divisional Director for Surgery, Anaesthetics and Cancer services
Drostan Cheetham is a Consultant Colorectal and General Surgeon in the Department of General Surgery having qualified from University College London in 1994.
He trained throughout the West London region including St Mark’s Hospital for colorectal disease and completing his MD thesis at Imperial.
He is interested in improving all aspects of surgical care. Previously as Colorectal Lead he introduced advanced laparoscopic bowel resections to West Herts in 2010, improved the enhanced recovery and as Clinical Director facilitated the rolling out a robotic programme across general surgery.
As Divisional Director for Surgery, Anaesthetics and Cancer he continues to focus on bringing improvements to all aspects of surgical care and supporting staff to achieve this.
Martin Keble, Divisional Director for Clinical Support services
Martin has been Divisional Director for Clinical Support Services since 2019 and the Chief Pharmacist since joining the Trust in 2008. He was previously the Chief Pharmacist at Barnet and Chase Farm Hospitals and Divisional Manager within our Trust.
Martin studied at Kings College London, is a local resident and has more than 30 years’ experience as a pharmacist.
As Divisional Director he is responsible for providing safe and effective Pathology, Pharmacy, Radiology and Therapies services across our sites.
Penny Snowden, Director of Midwifery and Gynaecology Nursing
Penny joined the Trust in March 2024 as Interim Director of Midwifery/Deputy Chief Nurse.
Penny has over 34 years’ experience in the NHS as a registered nurse and midwife. Penny has held several senior nursing and midwifery leadership roles including Director of Midwifery and Consultant Midwife. Penny gained her Masters degree in advancing midwifery practice at Kings College London.
As Director of Midwifery, Penny is responsible for providing corporate, strategic leadership for the delivery of high quality and safe maternity services.
