Our Board of Directors

Jag assumed the role of Chair of Royal Papworth Hospital in February 2024, following the retirement of Professor John Wallwork. He had previously been a non-executive director since November 2019.

Jag received his undergraduate training in medicine at Cambridge and London, qualifying in 1986. He received his postgraduate training in general practice and then in paediatrics and neonatology in the East of England and in Melbourne.

Jag was appointed as a consultant neonatologist at Cambridge in 1996 where he was director of the neonatal service for many years as well as a practising clinician. Jag’s leadership and management experience includes nearly 10 years as the Executive Medical Director at Cambridge University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust (CUH).

His wide-ranging portfolio as Medical Director included professional medical governance and leadership for more than 1,400 doctors, executive lead for Research and Development, executive lead for Postgraduate Medical Education, lead for patient safety and Director of Infection Prevention and Control. He was co-Chief Operating Officer for over three years and was executive lead for the award winning Electronic Patient Record system and related IT for over 2 years.

He was appointed Director of Digital at Cambridge in November 2017, overseeing extensive development of the IT programmes and then nominated to be chair of the Cambridgeshire and Peterborough STP digital group.

In addition to his acute hospitals roles, Jag has had many years experience of leading, supporting and managing change and leadership and strategy challenges across the wider NHS. He was an elected senior officer for his clinical professional association, the British Association of Perinatal Medicine for six years, the founding clinical lead for the Norfolk, Suffolk and Cambridgeshire neonatal network, chair of Monitor’s Medical Director Advisory Group, chair of East of England Medical Directors’ Forum and vice-chair of NHS Employers’ Consultant Contract negotiating team.

Jag is also a highly experienced teacher and lecturer with a two-decade track record of delivering lectures and training to heterogeneous as well as specialist audiences, nationally and internationally, across the fields of clinical practice, developing future clinical leaders, managing large-scale change, and implementing clinical IT systems. He has published more than 40 articles, including personal research. 

Outside of the immediate NHS, Jag currently sits as a Main Board Trustee of Macmillan Cancer Support, is a member of a number of regional forums focused on the interface between healthcare and technology and is an Honorary Fellow of the Cambridge Judge Business School, focusing on healthcare.

Jag stood down as Director of Digital at CUH in April 2019 to take up a new role as Chief Clinical Officer at the Eastern Academic Health Science Network.

Eilish Midlane became Chief Executive Officer at Royal Papworth Hospital in September 2022, having previously been Chief Operating Officer for five years. 

Before joining Royal Papworth in 2017, Eilish was the Divisional Director of Clinical Support Services at East and North Hertfordshire NHS Trust.

Prior to that, she trained and practiced as a biomedical scientist (a sub-group of healthcare scientists) for many years before moving from pathology to general hospital management in 2008.

She holds a wealth of experience spanning strategy, operational leadership and delivery and hospital and clinical services reconfiguration.

Eilish brings with her considerable expertise in patient safety, clinical governance and service improvement planning.

Tim is currently on secondment to East Kent Hospitals University NHS Foundation Trust for 12 months, from November 2023.

Tim joined Royal Papworth Hospital as Chief Finance Officer in April 2020. He was previously with Cambridge University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust where he was Director of Finance.

Tim is a chartered accountant with 15 years of senior financial leadership experience working across community, acute and specialist NHS organisations as well as in the private sector.  

Other roles

In addition to his role at Royal Papworth Hospital, Tim is a member of the following organisations: 

• the Federation of Specialist Hospitals;
• the National Cardiac Benchmarking Collaborative;
• Cambridgeshire and Peterborough Integrated Care System (ICS) Financial Performance & Planning Group (FPPG);
• Cambridge Biomedical Campus Strategy Group

He is also the finance lead for the Cambridgshire and Peterborough ICS' System Delivery & Transformation Working Group and System Clinical Group. 

Sophie became Chief Finance Officer (interim) at Royal Papworth Hospital in November 2023, having previously been Deputy Chief Finance officer for four years.

Sophie is a chartered accountant and a member of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales. She brings over 10 years of experience of senior financial leadership across the public sector and prior to joining Royal Papworth she held a number of roles at Monitor (now NHS England) with a focus on supporting organisations and systems to develop long term plans to ensure financial sustainability.

In her role at Royal Papworth Sophie leads on financial aspects of the Trust’s work, including the development of the Trust’s financial plans, financial reporting, the Trust’s commercial strategy and procurement. In addition to her role at Royal Papworth, Sophie is a member of the following groups:

• the Federation of Specialist Hospitals
• the Cambridgeshire and Peterborough Integrated Care System Chief Finance Officers group
• Cambridge Biomedical Campus Strategy Group

Dr Ian Smith is the Medical Director of Royal Papworth Hospital. He has particular responsibility for the research direction of the hospital. He has led on the delivery of the Heart and Lung Research Institute a major collaboration with the University of Cambridge and oversaw the establishment of the Papworth Clinical Trials Unit. 

Harvey joined Royal Papworth Hospital as chief operating officer (COO) in April 2023, having previously held executive and director roles in London and the south east of England.

Before joining Royal Papworth, Harvey was managing director and hospital director at University Hospital Sussex, one of the largest NHS Trusts in England. Before this he was COO and chief strategy officer at Medway NHS Foundation Trust.

During the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, Harvey led his Trust and system response to COVID-19. Latterly he joined the National Vaccine Programme with NHS England as director of integration, leading the planning and deployment for the vaccine booster and children’s vaccines across England. 

Harvey has a wealth of experience in operations and operational delivery and has worked at acute, specialist, system and regional level in senior operational roles, which give him a unique insight into the full range of services provided in today’s NHS, and importantly how to get the best out of them for patients and staff. 

Harvey holds a degree in politics and international relations and has focused his continued professional learning in service improvement, change management and healthcare economics in the NHS.

Over his 10 years in senior operations Harvey has led programmes which have improved performance, quality and safety in cancer services, elective care, theatres and post operative care, and emergency care across a number of Trusts, as well as delivering cost reduction and efficiency programmes. 

Outside of the NHS Harvey serves as deputy chair of governors for a large federation of schools in south London.

Harvey lives in London with his wife and two young children. 

Oonagh joined the Trust in October 2017 having held the same role at Bedford Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust.

Oonagh worked previously at Cambridge University Teaching Hospitals, where she undertook a number of senior human resources roles including Deputy Director of Workforce.

Oonagh is originally from Northern Ireland and worked in a number of NHS organisations in Belfast before moving to Cambridge in 1993.

Andrew joined Royal Papworth Hospital NHS Foundation Trust in 2017 following his role as IT Programme Director at a major London acute. He has over 20 years’ experience working in the health, Local Authority, HMP and private sectors, including overseas. Andrew is a graduate of the Oxford Said Executive Leadership programme, has a Master’s degree in Healthcare Informatics specialising in education and former Chair of the Cambridgeshire and Peterborough Integrated Care System (ICS) Digital Enabling Group. 

Andrew leads a multi-award winning digital team at Royal Papworth, is a thought leader, frequent key note presenter and has several publications. He is a member of the National GS1 UK Health Advisory Board and is a CHIME Certified Healthcare Chief Information Officer (CHCIO), a Fellow of the British Computer Society (BCS) and Leading Practitioner in the Federation of Informatics Professionals (FedIP). He was recognised in the CIO UK 100 in 2022, and again in 2023 while also making the global forum CIO 200 in the same year.

Andrew is a non-voting member of the Trust's Board of Directors.

Maura was appointed Chief Nurse at Royal Papworth Hospital NHS Foundation Trust in August 2021. She was previously Deputy Chief Nurse at Cambridge University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust.

Michael Blastland is a writer and broadcaster. For nearly twenty years, he was a BBC current-affairs presenter and producer, devising programmes including More or Less on Radio 4 – about numbers in public argument - of which he was also the first producer (with Andrew Dilnot the original presenter). He can still be heard as an occasional presenter on BBC Radio 4 and the BBC World Service.

He has written four books, including The Tiger that Isn’t, a guide to numbers in the news and politics. His other books are about risk, about his son’s autism, and, most recently, The Hidden Half – How the World Conceals its Secrets, about uncertainty.

He teaches, advises and presents widely, in schools, to business, government and academia. Current health-related roles include advisor to a large meta-analysis of the potential adverse effects of statins, and to the ‘Behaviour Change By Design’ research programme into nudge-type interventions for public health. He is also a board member of the Cambridge-based Winton Centre for Risk and Evidence Communication. 

Cynthia is an experienced ex NHS Director of Finance with a wide portfolio of NHS experience covering 39 years.

She has worked in all aspects of financial services and in all types of healthcare settings; large acute teaching hospitals, specialist hospitals, mental health and community services. She has a high level of experience in all financial and healthcare processes with a specialty in financial management and transformation.

Cynthia's diverse experience includes the education sector either through charity work or paid employment as an interim or consultant and the hospice sector through her voluntary work. 

Cynthia is currently the Chair of the Audit Committee for a GP Confederation in London and the Chair of the Patients & Family Committee at a Hospice in Suffolk.

She has a master's degree in Business Administration (MBA) from Warwick University and is a Fellow Member of the professional body the Chartered Institute of Public Finance & Accountancy (CIPFA).

Amanda enjoyed an extensive, varied and rewarding career in the NHS for over 40 years and the ethos, belief and love of the NHS remains a strong part of who she is and her ongoing contribution to life and work. Her career started in London where she trained and worked as a Paediatric and general nurse, moving into senior nursing leadership and management roles before moving into general management in 1992. Amanda undertook an MBA and held a variety of senior management roles before moving into a strategic joint leadership role across the acute, community and primary care sector in 2005.

Over the next 15 years she held a number of Executive roles working as a commissioner before leading the commissioning system in Sussex as the Chief Executive of NHS Sussex. She then worked as part of the senior team in NHS England as the Area Director for Surrey and Sussex before returning to the provider sector in 2014 as the Deputy Chief Executive and Director of Strategy of a large University Hospitals Trust where she also acted as the Chief Executive.  From 2016 Amanda led a large transformation programme to develop population health and integrated care across a number of partners before leading a programme to reform commissioning and develop integrated care across the STP.

As a Trustee and a Non-Executive Director, Amanda possess valuable experience in leading transformation, managing complexity, using problem solving and conflict resolution to progress and manage change.  She values relationships and partnerships which she believes to be essential, supported by strong governance, rigorous assurance processes and using appreciative enquiry, to secure safe, effective and efficient services for the members of the public who require them.

Diane is a qualified accountant with extensive business experience. She has held Finance Director roles at various commercial organisations including the information and publishing group Informa UK, insurance broker Willis Towers Watson and the regional law firm, Ellisons where she has streamlined, grown and transformed various business units. Currently, Diane works as an independent finance consultant, supporting businesses experiencing challenging situations.

Diane has a keen interest in healthcare and has served as a non-executive director within the NHS, most recently at the East Suffolk and North Essex NHS Foundation Trust and at the North East Essex Primary Care Trust (now NHS North East Essex Clinical Commissioning Group). She also sits on the Board of Trustees at the East of England’s award-winning contemporary visual arts gallery, Firstsite.

An Economics graduate of the University of Waterloo (Canada), Diane holds a Masters in Business Administration from Henley Business School and is a Fellow of the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants.

Charlotte joined Royal Papworth Hospital NHS Foundation Trust as associate non-executive director in January 2024.

She brings more than a decade of experience working in senior leadership roles in health services research and health policy. This includes five years as a senior research associate in the School of Clinical Medicine at the University of Cambridge and six years in senior roles at the Nuffield Trust, a politically independent health policy think tank. 

She has experience as a public governor for a community mental health trust, Cambridgeshire and Peterborough NHS Foundation Trust, and is a member of the British Medical Association patient liaison group.

Charlotte has been published in the BMJ as a lead author of medical research, as an invited policy expert, and as a patient on her experience of end-of-life caring.

She completed her PhD in New Zealand in 2007 before taking a post-doctoral position in behavioural science at the University of Cambridge.

Since 2010, much of her professional work has focused on improving patients' experiences of health and social care through academic research and policy influence, often working strategically and in partnership with others. 

Her academic work has been published across a range of internationally leading journals in clinical medicine, behavioural science, and public health – receiving both national and international awards including the Royal College of General Practitioners Health Services and Public Health Paper of the Year (2016) for work on the primary care experiences of unpaid carers.

Charlotte is a highly experienced communicator with a 25-year track record of delivering lectures to a range of national and international audiences, including experience of both teaching and academic supervision of medical students.

Gavin has many years’ experience as a private practice lawyer specializing in competition law. He is currently a senior consultant with boutique competition law firm Euclid Law, and teaches competition law at Cambridge University as part of a Masters programme. Gavin was previously a Panel Member of the UK Competition & Markets Authority, where he decided complex merger, market and antitrust cases, for five years until March 2018. Before that, Gavin was a partner for 14 years with the international law firm Linklaters, advising senior executives and the boards of leading global companies and financial institutions on competition compliance and managing risk.

Gavin has an enduring interest in healthcare. He has advised global healthcare companies throughout his career, and his decisions at the UK Competition & Markets Authority included the merger of NHS Foundation Trusts.

Gavin is also Chair of REAch2 Academy Trust, the largest primary-only multi-academy trust in the country with just over 60 primary academies across England. REAch2 is dedicated to ensuring that every child is given the highest quality education that REAch2 can offer, regardless of their background, so they get the best start in life.

Ian Wilkinson is a Clinical Pharmacologist and Professor of Therapeutics in the University of Cambridge.

He directs the Cambridge Clinical Trials Unit, and office of Translational Research, and leads the division of Experimental Medicine and Immunotherapeutics at the University of Cambridge. His main research interests are clinical/experimental studies designed to understand the mechanisms causing hypertension and cardiovascular disease, and to develop new treatments.

He is lead investigator on the MRC/BHF-funded AIMHY-INFORM trial, which will determine the most effective antihypertensive treatment for different ethnic groups in the UK, and a number of early phase trials run in collaboration with Industry partners.

Professor Wilkinson also leads the Cambridge Experimental Medicine Training Initiative – which aims to create the next generation of clinical researchers to develop the medicines of the future.