Chief Executive, Mike Wilkerson, joined St Richard’s Hospice in January 2023.
Mike had previously led Saint Catherine’s Hospice in North Yorkshire where he was Chief Executive for eight years.
He has extensive experience of working in palliative and end of life care, with previous roles at Rotherham Hospice and St Wilfrid’s Hospice in West Sussex.
Mike completed a Master’s degree in leadership and management in health and social care, gaining a distinction in 2008.
He is passionate about people and making a difference in the lives of those involved in hospices. This includes staff and volunteers, and our patients, their families and carers.
Inspiration throughout his hospice career has been with words of Dame Cicely Saunders:
“You matter because you are you, and you matter to the end of your life. We will do all we can not only to help you die peacefully, but also live until you die.”
As our first Director of Business and Income Generation, Abby is responsible for the strategic management of all our income generation activities and is focused on ensuring sustainable growth to underpin our vital services.
These activities include fundraising, retail and e-commerce as well as marketing and communications.
Abby has more than 17 years of strategic, fundraising, marketing, and operational experience across national and local charities in the care, education and health sectors.
These organisations include Muscular Dystrophy UK, Queen Elizabeth Foundation for Disabled People, and Crossroads Care Surrey.
She has also worked as a volunteer bereavement counsellor for the Princess Alice Hospice and is a passionate advocate for the support that hospices provide in the community.
Abby’s extensive charity experience is combined with a previous commercial background in the advertising and marketing sector, having been responsible for delivering global and national brand and advertising campaigns for organisations including Saatchi & Saatchi, VISA Europe and Proctor and Gamble.
Dan qualified as a Chartered Accountant in 2004 and has worked in varied roles since then with his last change of employer being to St Richard’s Hospice in 2013, taking the post of Finance Manager.
Dan has reshaped the Finance offering to the hospice since joining St Richard’s aided by an M.Sc in Charity Accounting and Financial Management in 2018 from the Bayes Business School. After taking the role as the hospice’s first Finance Manager he was promoted to the post of its first Director of Finance and Information in October 2020.
Dan has always been keen to promote the success of the charity and ensure the fantastic financial support given by the St Richard’s community is utilised to best effect, balancing long-term financial resilience with the growing need for the exceptional care provided by the many care-giving employees and volunteers at St Richard’s.
In his latest role as Director of Corporate Services, he is keen to lead on the hospice’s digital and estates and facilities strategies, and will be focussing on developing the excellent work and resilience of both the I.T. Team and Estates and Facilities Team.
As a Registered Nurse for 25 years, Care Director Debbie Westwood has worked in many roles dedicated to direct patient care – including as an Advanced Nurse Practitioner in Urology.
Debbie went on to become a Senior Nurse in Practice and Professional Development at a large teaching hospital, Heartlands Hospital now the Heart of England NHS Trust.
There, she found a love for teaching and nurturing staff at all levels to give patient-centred, quality care.
Then, she took a role as Workforce Development Lead for the West Midlands South Strategic Health Authority before going on to work as Head of Service Redesign for the Worcestershire Clinical Commissioning Groups.
After being involved in the redesign and commissioning of end-of-life and palliative care for 10 years, Debbie joined St Richard’s Hospice as Head of Education in 2017.
In the same year, she achieved a Master’s in Health Care Leadership. Her passion for innovation and service design to continually improve patient and family experience of hospice care, led her to her current role as Care Director, starting in February 2019.
Debbie became the Care Quality Commission registered manager responsible for all the nursing and palliative care delivered by the clinical departments at St Richard’s Hospice in January 2021.
Sarah started with a career in the arts but retrained with a BSc Biological science and pharmacology degree quickly followed by a MBChB Medicine and Surgery at the University of Warwick in her mid-late 20s.
During GP training Sarah became interested in palliative and end-of-life care and after her RCGP membership she completed a MSc in Palliative Medicine at the University of Warwick. Since then Sarah developed a portfolio career working across general practice, specialist palliative care and as a local Cancer Lead.
Sarah joined St Richard’s Hospice in 2013 as an in-patient specialist palliative care doctor, then as medical quality lead before becoming Clinical Director for medical governance and strategy. She also works at the Herefordshire and Worcestershire Integrated Care Board as the Herefordshire and Worcestershire Clinical End of Life Lead. She is still an avid art and book lover and enjoys spending time with her family or on her allotment.
As our Director of People, Learning and Culture, Nadia is responsible for the strategic people management functions across St Richard’s.
Nadia’s work focuses on both staffing groups and volunteers; designing and creating people and volunteer strategies, strengthening responsibilities across policies, ensuring all people-related activities align and accord with the hospice’s values and managing behaviour appropriately in line with Acas Code of Practice. Nadia is responsible for overseeing talent strategy, employee engagement, leadership development, equality and inclusive initiatives, and organisational culture.
Nadia’s previous experience of working in a Local Government setting for over 22 years has seen her work as a lead Chief People Officer for more than 6,000 staff, advising the Executive Leadership team.
Nadia is passionate that an employee’s voice should be heard, behaviours should align to organisational values and wellbeing is considered a priority.
As our first Director of Business and Income Generation, Abby is responsible for the strategic management of all our income generation activities and is focused on ensuring sustainable growth to underpin our vital services.
These activities include fundraising, retail and e-commerce as well as marketing and communications.
Abby has more than 17 years of strategic, fundraising, marketing, and operational experience across national and local charities in the care, education and health sectors.
These organisations include Muscular Dystrophy UK, Queen Elizabeth Foundation for Disabled People, and Crossroads Care Surrey.
She has also worked as a volunteer bereavement counsellor for the Princess Alice Hospice and is a passionate advocate for the support that hospices provide in the community.
Abby’s extensive charity experience is combined with a previous commercial background in the advertising and marketing sector, having been responsible for delivering global and national brand and advertising campaigns for organisations including Saatchi & Saatchi, VISA Europe and Proctor and Gamble.
