South West Yorkshire health chief honoured by OBE
The Chair of South West Yorkshire Mental Health NHS Trust, which serves the people of Calderdale, Kirklees and Wakefield, has been awarded an OBE in the Queen’s 2008 New Year Honours list.
Joyce Catterick has been Chair of the Trust for almost a year and is leading the Trust in its application to become an NHS Foundation Trust. Foundation Trusts give local people more say over the future development of the services they are responsible for, by recruiting them as members of the organisation. Over 10,300 local people have already joined the organisation as members.
Joyce joined the Trust from Calderdale Primary Care Trust (now NHS Calderdale) where she was Chair for over five years. She has previously worked in general nursing, paediatric nursing and midwifery and has an MA in Ethics. She also previously served on a Community Health Council and on the former Calderdale and Kirklees Health Authority.
Joyce has lived in Todmorden for over 30 years, is a school governor and an active member of the Calderdale Citizen’s Advice Bureau Trustee Board. She also sat as a trustee member of national Citizen’s Advice until September of this year.
South West Yorkshire Mental Health NHS Trust (SWYMHT) is the main provider of mental health services and specialist health services for people with a learning disability for Calderdale, Kirklees and Wakefield districts and is also a major provider of NHS medium secure services for people with mental health problems and learning disabilities for the Yorkshire region. The Trust serves a local population of 900,000 people and has an income of approximately £100 million.
As Chair of the Trust, Joyce is responsible for leading the organisation through a Trust Board made up of Non-Executive and Executive Directors and ensuring it provides good quality health services within the resources available. Once the Trust is authorised as a Foundation Trust, the Chair will also preside over a Members’ Council, which will advise the Board on behalf of the membership through elected representatives of the public and staff members.
Trust Chief Executive Steven Michael said, "Joyce thoroughly deserves this accolade. She has a strong track record of empowering local people to influence the development of health services and of working in partnership with other organisations, and is deeply committed to driving the development of mental health and learning disability services. In the short time Joyce has been with us she has already demonstrated a real passion for improving services and has shown excellent leadership of the Board".