Staff governors elections are on their way

Becoming a staff governor is yet another way of getting involved and ensuring the trust hears the views of our staff. Our governors have an important role to play and we are keen to ensure you are all represented.

Staff governors are ambassadors for our trust and responsible for representing the interests of the trust’s members and representing the views of your area. In our trust they will work alongside a range of public, patients and carers and appointed (partner) governors.

We are now looking to our care groups to each elect a governor. For staff not within the care groups (those in corporate or backbone services), you have a governor already in Mike Seneviratne. Mike is in his second term as a governor and will continue in the role until the end of his current term in November 2025.

These are great opportunities to get involved and to work alongside other staff that are part of the staff networks and become members of the new trust people committee, just another part of ensuring staff are fully represented within the trust.

Being a governor means having your say, it means meeting quarterly with fellow governors to hear about the performance and plans of the trust, it means sharing experiences and asking questions, it also means our chair and non-executive directors (who are appointed by the governors) and the rest of the board have an avenue through which it can reach out to the community and hear about what matters. There are also a range of other things to get involved in, the Annual Members Meeting (AMM) and other optional meetings, including peer reviews and visits, attending committees and collaboration with governors from elsewhere.

We would ask that you attend the quarterly council of governor meetings and the trust people committee, please talk to your line manager about the opportunity and if you or they want more information then contact:

• Philip Gowland, Director of Corporate Assurance: p.gowland@nhs.net
• Sue Black, Corporate Assurance Officer: susan.black13@nhs.net

We are looking for one person to represent each care group but if more than one person is interested then we will undertake an election and everyone in the care group will get their chance to vote for their governor. It’s your choice who the governor is.

Please be assured that you will be released from your role to support this work.

If becoming a governor isn’t for you, then please don’t forget to vote in the elections in the coming weeks to provide your support to a colleague and if you know of anyone else, friends, family, neighbours, patients, carers who might like to be involved then please help by signing them up as members in the first place by simply visiting the membership portal (opens in new tab) or go to the getting involved page on this website and if they would be interested in becoming a governor then share the information and contact details above.

Published: June 21, 2024