Meet the board

In October 2020, Naomi was appointed Independent Chair for Northamptonshire Health and Care Partnership. Naomi started her career at the front line, working in nurseries, and after three years running a medium sized children’s charity, joined the civil service to be the first director of Sure Start. After Sure Start, Naomi served three years as Director of the Social Exclusion Task Force. In addition, Naomi was on the Milton Keynes Primary Care Trust Board for eleven years, and since leaving the civil service, served as Poverty Advisor to the First Minister of Scotland. Her key interests are life cycle approaches to prevention, health inequalities and poverty.

Before the transition to Northamptonshire Integrated Care Board, Toby was the Chief Executive of Northamptonshire Clinical Commissioning Groups. With 15 years’ experience in the NHS, Toby was previously the Managing Director (Accountable Officer) of West Leicestershire Clinical Commissioning Group, an organisation which he successfully helped set up and lead for seven years. Toby has extensive experience in a variety of senior management and system leadership roles including being the Sustainability and Transformation Partnership (STP) Lead over the last three years for the Better Care Together programme serving the one million local people of Leicester, Leicestershire and Rutland (LLR).

An experienced Board Director, Toby previously held Deputy Chief Executive roles with the LLR PCT Cluster, and Leicester City PCT where he also held the role of Director of Primary and Community Care. Toby has also worked elsewhere in the NHS in an acute hospital setting and strategic health authority roles.

Toby has a strong appreciation of how the NHS and wider public sector touches and impacts on most of our lives. He is passionate about the value of clinical leadership and patient involvement, working with health and care professionals across public services to achieve the best value and outcomes for local people and places.

Before joining the NHS in 2003, Toby held a number of roles within local government and management consultancy with a focus on place based regeneration in economically deprived industrial areas in the North West, South Yorkshire and Wales.

Before the transition to Northamptonshire Integrated Care Board, Sarah held the position of Deputy Chief Executive for Northamptonshire Clinical Commissioning Groups. Prior to this, her role oversaw all aspects of contracting, performance and organisational development. she will take up in July 2022.

Before joining the Northamptonshire Clinical Commissioning Group, Sarah was the Executive Director of Finance for Gloucestershire Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust.

Eileen previously worked as the county’s Integrated Care System (ICS) Transition Director and has almost 30 years of NHS experience. She has held a number of executive positions including as Hospital CEO at Northampton General Hospital and Hospital Chief Executive at Kettering General Hospital.

As Chief Operating Officer, Eileen’s responsibilities include performance management, service redesign and improvement, some aspects of contracting, emergency planning and public and patient communication and engagement.

Eileen said: “This is an exciting time of change. There is finally an opportunity for health and social care to work more closely together for the benefit of the local population.

“Although change can sometimes pose challenges, between us, we will now be able to design a system that breaks down many of our historical boundaries.

“This will ensure that the population of the county – irrespective of where you live or your background – can have equal and enhanced access to joined-up care, according to their needs.”

I am a General Practitioner by background and continue to work clinically near to where I live in Rugby. Until recently, I have been the interim Medical Director for System Improvement and Professional Standards for NHSE Midlands. As such, I hope to bring my passion for quality improvement with me. In that role, I worked closely with colleagues in Northamptonshire and am looking forward to supporting the great work going on in the area. Prior to this I worked for the Transforming Primary Care Team in London supporting primary care workforce recruitment and retention and was also on the Governing Body of Coventry and Warwickshire CCG. In the past I was Cancer Clinical Lead for Camden CCG and worked to reduce the inequalities in cancer outcomes across the area. I will work to ensure that all citizens in Northamptonshire have equal access to high quality and safe health services and will collaborate with others to consider how we can continue to make improvements in health outcomes across the county.

Prior to Yvonne’s appointment to Designate Chief Nursing Officer, Yvonne worked as a Deputy Director of Nursing at The Royal Wolverhampton NHS Trust and Walsall Healthcare Trust.  An experienced nurse, Yvonne has previously held senior management roles in provider, CCG commissioner and NHS England regulatory functions. 

Afzal is currently a Non-Executive Director at University Hospitals Coventry & Warwickshire and recently served as a trustee of a large multi schools academy trust board. He is also a Group Executive Director at Orbit Housing Group.

Andrew is an experienced Executive and Non-Executive Director working in Charity, Commercial and Public sectors. He spent his early career establishing a National Awareness Charity, and is now Chief Executive of Instructus, an education charity working in skills development, personal development and apprenticeships.

Janet is currently Chief Executive and Registrar at the Academy for Healthcare Science. Her previous roles have included a Non-Executive Director at University Hospitals Northamptonshire, Director of the Department of Health’s Modernising Scientific Careers Programme and Director of Workforce for the East Midlands Strategic Health Authority.

Dr Agboola is a full member of the unitary Board and holds   a particular responsibility for primary care. As a Non-Executive Member to Northamptonshire Integrated Care Board, Dr Agboola is also the  Director of Public Health for Warwickshire County Council. A fellow of the Faculty of Public Health she has over 11 years’ experience of working in public health and will bring a broad experience across health and local government as well as a fresh perspective working in Northamptonshire for the first time.

Anna is Chief Executive of West Northamptonshire Council, one of the county’s two new unitary authorities created in April 2021 as part of major local government reform.

With a successful leadership career spanning the public and private sectors, Anna has extensive experience of the social care and health agenda coupled with a strong track record in business change and transformation.

Her previous role as county council Deputy Chief Executive and Director of Adult Services saw Anna deliver a new vision and operating model for adult social care across Northamptonshire, developing collaborative and strategic partnerships with health partners and driving a significant transformation programme across a range of adults’ services for some of our most vulnerable residents – work which led to her winning Director of the Year at the National MJ awards.

Before joining the public sector, Anna’s progressive career in strategic management included Commercial Director roles at Capita and HCL Axon, which saw her working with a range of local authority partners to lead and deliver major transformation programmes.

Adele began her role as Chief Executive of North Northamptonshire Council in January 2024, but has been with the new authority since its beginnings in April 2021, as the Council’s Executive Director of Customer and Governance, the Monitoring Officer and also the interim Deputy Chief Executive.

Adele brings a wealth of public sector leadership experience and has a strong record of driving excellence in public service delivery. Her experience includes responsibilities in HR, Customer Services, Legal and Democratic, as well as the Councils Monitoring Officer and most senior lawyer. She has worked closely with elected members and the Corporate Leadership Team in setting up the new unitary authority and has been instrumental in supporting the delivery of the Corporate Plan.

Prior to this role, Adele held senior positions, as Director of Governance and Regulatory Services at Melton Borough Council with responsibilities including environmental health, licensing and enforcement and Head of Service at Rutland County Council, where she led both in-house services and delivered financial and operational efficiencies in outsourced services.  

As a successful strategic leader, Adele is passionate about our ambition to become an Employer of Choice and “growing our own talent” is essential to this. North Northamptonshire Council and its partners have big ambitions for North Northamptonshire, and Adele is proud to be leading North Northamptonshire Council to deliver this.

Angela has worked in the NHS for over 30 years and has a clinical background as a speech and language therapist. She is NHFT’s longstanding Chief Executive who consistently ranks in the Health Service Journal's Top 50 rated NHS Chief Executives.

In 2019, Angela was appointed Chief Executive of Leicestershire Partnership Trust and is now the joint Chief Executive of the Leicestershire Partnership and Northamptonshire Healthcare Group. Angela brings to the Board a strong belief in developing compassionate cultures. She prioritises co-production and involvement with patients, service users and carers. Angela was also awarded an Honorary Doctorate from the University of Northampton for her contribution to leadership.

Richard joined as joint Chief Executive of University Hospitals of Northamptonshire (UHN) and University Hospitals of Leicester NHS Trust (UHL) in October 2023.

He has been Chief Executive of UHL since 2021 and recently worked with the boards of both Kettering General Hospital (KGH) and Northampton General Hospital (NGH) as the Senior Responsible Officer for Collaboration.

He is the also the Chair of the East Midlands Cancer Alliance and Midlands Regional Talent and Leadership Board.

Richard is proud to work in his local hospitals and he and his family live in South Leicestershire. 

Jonathan is the Chairman of Northamptonshire's Local Medical Committee, a Clinical Director of a Primary Care Network and Immediate Past Chairman of the group of 16 CDs in the county, working closely with Northamptonshire's Clinical Commissioning Group. Jonathan is an elected member of the local LMC, a director (and a past chairman) of the local Federation and a GP Partner in Wellingborough.

Jonathan was elected to a fellowship of the Faculty of Clinical Informatics and a career long clinical informatician, major projects have been undertaken with the MoD in Whitehall and NHS Digital as a Standards Appraiser. In addition, Jonathan chaired the British Computer Society's Primary Healthcare Specialist Group. As well as health informatics, Jonathan has an interest in Mental health, wellbeing and military veterans.

Dr Andrew Rathborne has been a GP partner in Brackley for 25 years. As well as his work as a GP he has been a GP trainer, helping teach the next generation of doctors over the past 20 years. More recently he has become involved in the healthcare organisation, being a representative for the LMC (local medical committee). He is also clinical director for Brackley and Towcester Primary care network. He has an interest in lifestyle medicine and is passionate about developing services which can help patients find good health and wellbeing rather than just treating illness.