Healthwatch staff member at a conference

Our Board

Our Board works to ensure that we are fulfilling our legal and statutory obligations. You can find out more about our Board below.

Our Chair, Amanda Smith

Amanda is the Clinical Director for The Employee Resilience Company, providing psychological support services for over 2 million public and private sector employees. A Psychotherapist and EMDR / Brainspotting trauma specialist by background, Amanda has worked within senior clinical leadership roles in the NHS, with partnership management across Mental Health, Acute, Specialist and Community Trusts.

Amanda is an experienced mental health trainer, workplace mediator, TRiM trained critical incident responder and CBT life coach. Having sat within the Executive Committee and Board of EAPA (The Employee Assistance Professionals Association) for over 15 years she has written regular articles for national press, professional journals and contributed to writing the EAPA buyers guide and EAPA standards, the professional guidelines for clinicians and individuals working within the field of employee health and wellbeing. She currently sits within the Project Board for APPTS (The Royal College of Psychiatrists and The British Psychological Society) accreditation scheme for psychological therapies.

Amanda contributes to professional development, teaching, research and the wider health and wellbeing agenda, and is An Honorary Associate of The University of Salford. With over 25 years clinical practice, training, and leadership Amanda has a strong desire to support individuals to remain healthy and well both within the workplace and wider community.

Our Board

 

Anita Kanji

Anita Kanji is the Lead Officer for Health & Wellbeing at the Manchester Deaf Centre.

Circle Steele

Circle Steele is Chief Executive Officer at Wai Yin Society, and a member of various other boards, organisations and trusts. She is consistently championing cultural diversity on behalf of Chinese and other ethnic minorities in Greater Manchester. She was pleased to receive an invitation from Her Majesty to attend a Royal Garden Party at Buckingham Palace in 2008 to acknowledge the contribution she had made to society. Circle is both committed and passionate about the communities she serves and, her extensive experience in the community will allow her to positively contribute to the strategic vision of Healthwatch.

Fergal McCullough

Fergal is the director of The Men's Room. Before joining the Men’s Room Fergal worked with asylum seekers and refugees, managing a refugee resettlement programme and previously working as an organisational development worker helping refugees and asylum seekers establish and run their own community organisations.

Charles Kwaku-Odoi

Charles is Chief Officer of the Caribbean & African Health Network (CAHN). He is also a Deputy Lieutenant of the County of Greater Manchester.  Charles was named in the Health Service Journal as the 50 most influential Black Asian and Minority Ethnic people in health in the UK (October 2022).  Charles is a great advocate for equity and fairness across a range of important health and well-being issues for people of the Caribbean and African Diaspora.

Paul Hughes

Paul was formerly a member of the Manchester People First Board.  

Future Board meetings

Our Board meetings are open to the public. Check out our next meetings:

22nd November 2023

8 December 2023 (AGM) Book Ticket

Past Board papers

We make the papers for our public Board meetings available online. We also publish a summary of what was discussed. Check out our past meetings to read more.

Find out more

Latest reports and publication