Our board

Chair

Andy Willis

Andy became Chair of the Trust in March 2020. As well as leading our Board, Andy sees his role as supporting partnership working between acute, social care, mental health/learning disability and other services in Devon and the South West so we can collectively make a real impact on the health and wellbeing of our population. Andy is also the Chair of Dorset HealthCare and Alliance Homes and he has lay/non-executive roles in education sectors.
 

Chief Executive

Melanie Walker MBE

Melanie Walker MBE, joined the Trust in April 2014. Since her arrival, she has been instrumental in raising the profile of mental health,  learning disability and neurodiversity. A general nurse by background, Melanie has worked at all levels and in all settings in the NHS. She has a long history of leading change in health and social care services and has been a commissioner. Melanie has an extensive experience of working and leading in the voluntary sector, including developing social enterprises. Melanie was formerly Chief Executive of Newham Primary Care Trust and Chief Executive of The Princess Alexandra Hospital NHS Trust in Harlow, Essex.  She was NHS Community Leader of the year in 2009 for her work in involving patients and communities in healthcare and for her work supporting equality and inclusion.
Melanie received an MBE in 2019 for services to the NHS.

You can follow Melanie on Twitter: @DPT_ChiefExec
 

Non-executive Directors

Non-executive Director

Ian Turner

Ian Turner is a Chartered Accountant and retired as a partner from the Accounting and Professional Services firm, KPMG in 2003. He has since worked in a number of organisations in a Non-executive Director, Executive, Trustee and advisory capacity.

Between 2007 and 2017 he was a Non-executive Director at Weston Area Health NHS Trust, where he spent time as Chair of the Audit Committee and as Vice Chair.

He is currently Deputy Chief Executive and Finance Director of the Healthcare Financial Management Association (HFMA) which represents Finance Professionals within the NHS. He is also a Trustee and Chair of Audit and Finance of RICE, a Charity researching into the Care of the Elderly and the Healthcare Supply Association (HCSA), a membership organisation for procurement professionals in the NHS.

Non-executive Director

Tanya Barron

Tanya has senior experience in many fields, notably the care, disability and international development sectors. She is a former Chief Executive of Home-Start International and Plan International UK, and was International Director of Leonard Cheshire Disability. Tanya was Chair of the UNICEF NGO Committee in Geneva for seven years and her current non-executive roles include Hertfordshire Partnership University NHS Foundation Trust, the Education Development Trust and the chair of Affinity Trust.

Non-executive Director

Dinah Cox OBE

Dinah has lived in Devon for eight years. She became a Non-executive Director of the organisation in October 2022.

She works as the Associate Director at City Bridge Trust, a grant making organisation and is a Non-Executive Director for Devon and Cornwall Police. She is also the Chair of Devon Community Foundation, supporting the work of community initiatives across the county and a member of the National Trust South West Regional Advisory Group and the Liveable Exeter Place Board.

The first 50 years of Dinah's life were spent in London where she studied social policy and gained more than twenty years’ experience working to influence, develop and fund social change both in paid and trustee work for charities. She also worked for Government as a Senior Policy Advisor and as the first head of the Royal College of Nursing Foundation.

She is committed to seeing a more equitable world where people from all backgrounds are supported to achieve their potential.

Non-executive Director

Simon Hamilton

Simon became a Non-executive Director in September 2022.  He brings skills and experience in strategy, transformation and technology from a career in financial services, most recently at Nationwide Building Society.  Simon is also a Non-executive Director of the Money and Pensions Service, a public body helping people to improve their financial wellbeing, and a Governor at the Arts University Bournemouth.

Non-executive Director 
Devon Partnership NHS Trust and Cornwall Partnership NHS Foundation Trust

Miriam Maddison

Miriam joined in July 2023 and is a joint appointment with Cornwall Partnership NHS Foundation Trust, as our two organisations strive to work more closely together to plan and deliver services. She has extensive experience of working in the NHS and local government within the south west, including roles in public health, primary care commissioning and as a Director of Adult Social Services. She has also been Chair of SHAL Housing in Somerset. Since 2012, Miriam has been a company director, providing consultancy support to adult social care services.  She is passionate about care quality and reducing inequalities in health. Miriam is a family carer and draws on that experience to try and see health and care services from the perspective of the patient and the public.

Associate Non-executive Director

Martin is a Physician by background and has 40 years of NHS experience having originally trained in London. He was a Consultant Renal Physician at the RD&E for over 20 years and the Post Graduate Dean for Medical Education across the South West for many years before retiring at Easter 2019. He brings experience of both board level and clinical management and has an MBA in Health Executive Management. He also has an interest in clinical governance and patient safety and chairs the Quality and Safety Committee. Martin joined us as a Non-executive Director in July 2019.

Executive Directors

Chief Medical Officer

Dr Fintan Larkin

Fintan joined our team in December 2022 and was formerly the Clinical Director for Acute Mental Health Services at West London NHS Trust.

Chief Nurse and Allied Professions Lead

Chris Burford

Chris first joined the Trust in 2002 as locality operations manager for Teignbridge, moving on to other Trust operational roles in Exeter in 2007 before becoming managing partner for the newly formed Adult Directorate in 2010. In 2016 he was appointed Deputy Director of Nursing and Interim Director of Nursing and Practice in April 2019.

Chris has held a number of senior operational and nursing roles throughout his 37 year NHS career in London and the South West, originally trained as a general nurse in Cheltenham and later mental health nurse in London.

Chris' special interests include learning from people's experiences of our mental health services and engaging people, families and staff in everything that we do.

He is a qualified management coach and has a keen interest in staff leadership and  development programmes. He is a specialist mental health advisor to Care Quality Commission.

Director of Corporate Affairs

Laura Hobbs

Laura first joined the organisation in 2008 as a project manager in Human Resources, before undertaking the Associate Director of Organisational Development post for a year. In 2010, Laura became the Trust CQC Inspection Lead and held this post for 7 years, until she was appointed the Head of CQC Compliance and Equality, Diversity & Inclusion, taking a strategic leadership role in both regulatory compliance and equality. 

Laura was appointed as Director of Corporate Affairs in February 2020. 

Laura has many years experience working across the Devon healthcare system joining the Devon Workforce Development Confederation in 2002, subsequently working in a variety of primary care, acute Trust and mental health / learning disability Trust roles across service planning, service improvement, workforce development, organisational development, project management, compliance and equality. Laura has significant healthcare experience in transformational change, engagement and involvement, policy development, quality and safety, compliance and regulation, governance and inclusion.

Director of Strategy and Partnerships

Dr Sonja Manton

Sonja joined the organisation in November 2022 as Director of Strategy and Partnerships. She has built a wide portfolio of expertise and experience in health and care for more than 20 years in Devon. She has held executive and senior leadership roles delivering strategic change in integrated community health and social care, commissioning, acute and mental health, learning disabilities and neurodiversity across the county. With a PhD in system dynamics, she has a particular interest in working across organisational boundaries and with communities and lived expertise, to shape better outcomes for people.

Medical Director for Devon Mental Health, Learning Disability and Neurodiversity Provider Collaborative

Dr Colm Owens

Colm trained in medicine in Liverpool before moving to London to train in psychiatry. He qualified as a consultant in 2009 and has worked in Liaison Psychiatry, Old Age Psychiatry and General Adult Psychiatry.

He has worked at Devon Partnership NHS Trust since 2011. He was Clinical Director of Older People’s Services between 2012 and 2019 where he was involved in setting up the Devon Memory Service and the Bristol Dementia Wellbeing Service. He took up the post of Deputy Medical Director. He has chaired the Trust’s Clinical Advisory Group since the onset of the COVID-19 Pandemic.

Colm holds an honorary senior clinical lecturer post with the University of Exeter and has published research in elder abuse and carer stress in dementia. His interests include population health and epidemiology of mental illness. He was recently appointed to clinically lead the Devon ICS Provider Collaborative.

Medical Director for South West Provider Collaborative

Dr Jason Fee

Jason is the Medical Director for South West Provider Collaborative. Our South West Provider Collaborative is accountable to NHS England and NHS Improvement for the delegated commissioning of specialised Adult Secure Services, Adult Eating Disorder Services and Child and Adolescent Mental Health Tier 4 Services. Our Collaborative also facilitates collaborative working across its Provider Partner members where it is considered beneficial at-scale. Jason is leading the re-design of clinical care pathways and service provision across the South West, in order to ensure that individuals in need of these services receive timely high quality care as close to home as possible. 

Jason is an experienced Consultant Forensic Psychiatrist having worked in the NHS for over 25 years. He has over eight years’ experience as an NHS Clinical Director and has worked within healthcare settings both internationally and within the NHS over the course of his career.

Jason also holds a NHS England national independent clinical advisor role to National Oversight Group for High Secure Commissioning.

Programme Director for South West Provider Collaborative

Anne Forbes

Anne is the Programme Director for South West Provider Collaborative and is responsible for directing the transformation programme. Our Collaborative is accountable to NHS England and NHS Improvement for the delegated commissioning of specialised Adult Secure Services, Adult Eating Disorder Services and Child and Adolescent Mental Health Tier 4 Services. Our Collaborative also facilitates collaborative working across its Provider Partner members where it is considered beneficial at-scale. 

Anne has a background in finance, governance and business intelligence and has held various roles as part of executive and senior teams for over 25 years, within the NHS and commercial sector.

Director for Mental Health, Learning Disability and Neurodiversity (MHLDN) Provider Collaborative for South West Provider Collaborative

Jacquie Mowbray-Gould

Jacquie Mowbray-Gould re-joined Devon Partnership NHS Trust (DPT) in March 2022 as the Programme Director for the Mental Health, Learning Disability and Neurodiversity Provider Collaborative. Jacquie trained as a Mental Health Nurse in the North East, moving to London for 20 years and then on to Devon in 2011. During that time she worked in mental health across both the NHS and in local authorities as a clinician and latterly as an operational leader. Leaving DPT in 2017, Jacquie moved to Kent and Medway NHS Trust to take up the post of Chief Operating Officer – living in Devon and commuting to Kent. When the opportunity arose to work in Devon again, leading the development of the Provider Collaborative with Dr Colm Owens, she jumped at the chance.  Throughout her career, Jacquie has been absolutely committed to the fundamental principles of coming to work to make a difference, making a positive impact for people with mental health, learning disability and neurodiversity needs and supporting our staff to provide the best possible care for the communities we serve.