HCT appoints two new Non-Executive Directors to the Board
HCT has appointed two new Non-Executive Directors to the Board, Rukshana Kapasi and Rohan Sivanandan. Rohan and Rukshana officially took up their roles at the beginning of July 2021 and bring extensive experience in healthcare and organisational transformation.
Rohan said: "I am very pleased to be joining HCT’s Board at such an important time for the Trust and the wider NHS. I am honoured to have the opportunity to work together with staff, patients and partners to help improve healthcare and health outcomes for the population which the Trust serves."
Rukshana said: "I am delighted to be joining HCT at such an exciting and formative time in its history. I look forward to using my experience to make a contribution to the Trust’s future development in improving access, inclusion and the quality of our services, so that we become systems leaders in innovating excellence in community health, and closing the gap on health inequalities."
HCT’s Chair Dr Linda Sheridan said: “Rukshana and Rohan bring a wealth of experience to our Board, as well as a deep personal commitment to ensuring we deliver the best possible care to the thousands people we support in their homes, in local clinics, in schools and in our community hospitals across Hertfordshire, West Essex and beyond.
“We are currently rated as 'Good' by the Care Quality Commission. This means the services we provide are performing well and meeting the expectations of the inspectors who monitor, inspect and rate healthcare services across the UK. But our ambition is that people we serve receive outstanding care from us, that we enable healthier communities, and in doing so, we become recognised as an Outstanding Trust.
“I am delighted that Rukshana and Rohan have joined our Board to help us and the wider HCT community fulfil this ambition.”
Rukshana Kapasi
Rukshana is Barnardo’s first Director of Health, responsible for leading Barnardo’s transformation into a health and social care organisation. Barnardo’s delivers over 800 services nationally and has 158 health commissioned services from integrated child and family health hubs to early intervention community mental health services.
She is a nurse and has extensive expertise in transforming health services and leading equality initiatives in the NHS using patient/user/carer led coproduction whole system methodologies. Some of the outcomes of her research have led to PALS services being introduced in every hospital, Patient Choice in primary care and patient profiling to address health inequalities. She has experience of managing partnerships to improve healthcare and most recently was Chair of IBDUK, a collaboration of 17 professional bodies, such as the Royal Colleges of Surgeons, GPs, Physicians, Nursing, patient organisations and patients to coproduce IBD standards into a digital interface for multidisciplinary teams and patients to assess services independently to affect local change.
Rohan Sivanandan
Rohan worked as an economist and senior executive in the private sector before moving into the education field, latterly as an education service chief officer. He went on to set up his own consultancy specialising in organisational transformation and leadership coaching.
Rohan has held a number of board, non-executive and trustee positions. Currently, he is a non-executive director for the Children and Family Court Advisory and Support Service (Cafcass) and for Cambridge University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust. He is a lay member of the Independent Reconfiguration Panel, chairs NHS Mental Health Act hearings and is an awards assessor for the Advisory Committee on Clinical Excellence. Rohan chairs adjudication hearings for Social Work England, serves as a magistrate, and is an independent member for the Greater London Authority and the Boundary Commission for England.
To find out more about our Board, please visit our Board page.
