About us

NHS Providers is the membership organisation for the NHS hospital, mental health, community and ambulance services that treat patients and service users in the NHS. We help those NHS foundation trusts and trusts to deliver high-quality, patient-focused care by enabling them to learn from each other, acting as their public voice and helping shape the system in which they operate.

NHS Providers has all trusts in England in voluntary membership, collectively accounting for £124bn of annual expenditure and employing 1.5 million people.

NHS Providers is led by its members. It has an active board of 20 chairs and chief executives, elected by member trusts.

Read our anti-racism statement

What we do

Our strategic objectives span the key focus areas of influence, voice and support, provided by a professional organisation. These help us:

• help providers drive improvement through effective shared development of best practice, support and learning for board members, governors and executive colleagues; create networking opportunities
• shape and influence the financial, policy and regulatory frameworks impacting on members' day-to-day work and future development via policy consultantions and horizon scanning
• build effective relationships with key stakeholders in central government, with regulators and across healthcare; champion member interests and raise their profile positively in the media
• support trusts in becoming foundation trusts

Our board

In order to be effective as a membership organisation, we need to be excellent at identifying our members’ needs and meeting them. We must also be fully accountable to our members in all that we do.

The way that we are governed reflects this commitment - our board below is made up of elected chairs and chief executives, representative of our member organisations. 

Acute trust chairs and chief executives

Dame Linda Pollard, chair, Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust (June 2025)

Nick Carver, chair, Nottingham University Hospitals NHS Trust (June 2026)

Professor Richard Scothon, chair, County Durham and Darlington NHS Foundation Trust (June 2027)

Jan Ross, chief executive, The Walton Centre NHS FT (June 2025)

Dr Birju Bartoli, chief executive, Northumbria Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust (June 2027)

Len Richards, chief executive, Mid Yorkshire Teaching NHS Foundation Trust (June 2027)

Professor Meghana Pandit, chief executive, Oxford University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust (June 2027)

Richard Mitchell, chief executive, University of Leicester NHS Foundation Trust and University of Northamptonshire Group (June 2027)

Mental health trust chairs and chief executives

Selina Ullah, chair, Derbyshire Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust (June 2025)

Sharon Mays, chair, Sheffield health and Social Care NHS Foundation Trust (June 2026)

David Jennings, chair, Tees, Esk and Wear Valleys NHS Foundation Trust (June 2027)

Karen Taylor, chief executive, Hertfordshire Partnership University NHS Foundation Trust (June 2026)

Therese Patten, chief executive, Bradford District Care NHS Foundation Trust (June 2027)

Chris Oliver, chief executive, Lancashire and  South Cumbria NHS Foundation Trust (June 2027)

Ambulance trust chairs and chief executives

Andy Trotter, chair, London Ambulance Service (June 2027)

Richard Henderson, chief executive, East Midlands Ambulance Service NHS Trust (June 2026)

Community trust chairs and chief executives

Mary Elford, chair, Cambridgeshire Community Services NHS Trust, East of England (June 2027)

Elliot Howard-Jones, chief executive, Hertfordshire Community NHS Trust, East of England (June 2026)

Our representatives

• Professor Sir Terence Stephenson, chair
• Saffron Cordery, interim chief executive
• Orla Fee, director of communications
• Miriam Deakin, co-director of development and engagement
• Jenny Reindorp, co-director of development and engagement
• Caroline Harrison, director of corporate services and finance