Our Trustees set the strategy for the charity and work to ensure that we are meeting the changing needs of the people who require our care. All Trustees have a statutory duty of care and are personally accountable. They come from a variety of professional backgrounds across the county and volunteer their time free of charge.
Alan has recently retired as Executive Director of Business Development at St James’s Place, Cirencester. He has had a variety of roles covering Training, Human Resources, Business Development and Compliance.
Before retiring, Trevor Bentley worked for over 25 years as an independent consultant with business leaders and executive teams. His experience during this time included teaching on a number of MBA programs in British Universities as well as a range of public management development programs in the UK and Australia. In his consulting Trevor worked to improve relationships, increase awareness and to experiment with being different. His unique consulting style often unearthed hidden issues and his creative interventions usually led to lasting improvements. He is a co-founder of the centre4gio (Gestalt in Organisations) in the UK, and a director of The Space Between Pty. Ltd. in Australia. He has a PhD in organisation development as well as being a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Management Accountants. He has also written widely about his work. He is married to Liz and they have two sons and four grandchildren. They live in Nailsworth in the English Cotswolds.
Trustee Chris is a Registered Podiatrist and has recently retired from the local NHS having served for 45 years in numerous senior clinical, management and leadership roles.
Chris is passionate about linking research with front line clinical practice and in 2007 he gained a PhD in Social Sciences focused on older people and ‘person-centred’ care. Chris is also a Fellow of the College of Podiatry.
Before retiring Mel practised as a patent attorney for over thirty-five years, counselling a major international corporation on intellectual property (IP) law matters. He worked abroad (Europe, USA, Asia) for twenty-five of those years and has extensive experience in advocacy, in licensing, and in business-, personnel- and change-management. In addition to his IP Law qualifications Mel has a BSc and a PhD, both in chemistry.
Co-opted Trustee, Hugh was trained as a lawyer, working in the City for several years, before joining St.James’s Place Wealth Management, where he worked for over 20 years as Group Legal Director and Company Secretary, before retiring in 2017.
He also managed the very successful in house charity, The St. James’s Place Foundation, for several years and was more recently a Trustee of Young Gloucestershire until December 2018. Hugh lives near Cirencester and interests include skiing, tennis and travelling.
Neil was a former Mayor of Gloucester City Council and chose Longfield as his charity of the year. He also has specialist experience in District Nursing, palliative care and clinical audit and is currently studying for a PhD in aspects of the Principles of Co-operative Health and Social Care Provision. He brings all this experience to support the work we do at Longfield.
Andrew spent 20 years in the City in various investment related roles before joining St. James Place in 2003.
He is currently responsible for managing the St. James’s Place Charitable Foundation and Corporate, Social Responsibility activities.
Before retiring Martin was Finance Director of several large Financial Services Companies including Zurich and St, James’s Place. Prior to that he was an Actuarial Consultant in the City. He has lived in Kemble since 1990 and retired in 2011. His interests include Rock Music, Football (particularly West Bromwich Albion) and travel. Martin has a Maths degree from Bristol University and is a Fellow of the Institute of Actuaries.
Sally graduated in Medicine from Leeds University in 1984 and became a consultant in public health medicine in 1992. She has over 20 years of Board level experience in the NHS in Gloucestershire. She has maintained an interest in end of life care throughout her career, since publishing research on the perspective of carers in 1992. She now chairs the South West Clinical Senate, providing clinical advice to NHS England on all significant service change proposals in the South West of England and is the Responsible Officer for NHS Resolution, an arm’s length body of the Department of Health and Social Care, providing expertise on the resolution of concerns and disputes. She is a Fellow of the Faculty of Public Health and is currently their assistant registrar.
Brian qualified as an engineer and worked for over twenty years within ICI and BP as Engineer and Project Manager responsible for the worldwide application of control systems and computers to chemical and petrochemical plants. This was followed by eight years in the Middle East setting up and operating an engineering company. He was responsible for Business Development and Recruitment. He has a BSc from Loughborough University and an MSc from Imperial College.
Since being retired in 1999 he has gained ten years governance experience as Governor and Chair of Governors at a local primary school. In addition, he has been a volunteer with Longfield since 2003, helping out in the Fundraising team and more recently as a van driver. He is now a Co-opted Trustee.
He has a patient’s perspective in understanding loss, grief and illness, having used Longfield’s bereavement and Hospice at Home services and being diagnosed with cancer in 2014.
“My wish is to see Longfield evolve and grow so that their services reach out to a wider audience.”
Sarah worked for over 30 years in health service research, mainly as a senior research fellow at the National Nursing Research Unit, King’s College, London. She led several large scale programmes of research focusing primarily on the careers of nurses and midwives and undertook evidence-based reviews to inform policies on nursing education and the nursing workforce. She has a PhD in education. Now retired, she is drawing on her working experience to contribute to the work of Longfield.
