Our Leadership Team
Meet our team who are responsible for running Martlets, St Barnabas House and Chestnut Tree House.
We’re committed to ensuring that our expertise can reach everyone who needs it, which is why in 2024, Martlets merged with St Barnabas House and Chestnut Tree House. Bringing our teams and resources together as one organisation means we can focus on new and exciting visions and plans for our people and patients.
Stuart brings extensive leadership experience from across the health and care sector, including shaping national healthcare policy and legislation. As a Chief Officer at NHS Sussex, he spearheaded the transformation of All-Age Continuing Care services, creating a single, integrated service to ensure the delivery of safe, high-quality and equitable care provision for individuals with complex needs or those requiring end-of-life care.
“It’s a very exciting time to be joining the charity. Having previously been a Trustee for St Barnabas Hospices, I have seen first-hand the essential work that the hospices do for adults, children, young people and their families across Sussex and South-East Hampshire and I’m thrilled to be part of that,”
Becki’s worked in the charity sector for over 25 years for a number of well-known brands including Sightsavers, WWF, the Prince’s Trust and the Alzheimer’s Society. She joined St Barnabas and Chestnut Tree House in March 2020 and is now responsible for commercial funding, including the domiciliary care agency; commissioned work from statutory and government sources; and all other income generation streams for Southern Hospice Group, following a merger with St Barnabas House and Chestnut Tree House hospices. Outside of work Becki spends her time cooking, sewing and being a taxi service to her teenage son. She lives in Hassocks with her husband, son, dog and cat.
"Having spent many years working in overseas development, this role at the hospices is the first time in my career that I have had the honour and privilege to support the community that myself and my family live in.”
John is a qualified management accountant and has served as Finance Director or CFO for many years in NHS hospital trusts and universities. John has two grown-up children and lives in Brighton, where he produces cider from apples grown in the garden.
"Having supported local food bank and homelessness charities as a volunteer, I’m enjoying the opportunity to bring my professional skills and experience to the running of this important local charity.”
Jane is a consultant in palliative medicine and has worked in palliative care for 18 years in community, hospice inpatient and hospital posts in the UK and overseas both as a GP and as a palliative care specialist. She works closely with the Head of Service to provide clinical and strategic leadership for the hospice, clinical insight into discussions at the executive team level and is the organisation’s Caldicott Guardian. Jane continues to be involved in direct patient care, training, education, research and governance alongside this role. She lives in Hove and is a very keen Charleston dancer and sea dipper.
“I am passionate about working within multi-professional teams to deliver effective holistic and equitable care in a sustainable way for both patients, their loved ones and our own staff. I believe palliative care is everyone’s business.”
Kathleen’s role covers the executive lead of our Estates and Facilities and Health and Safety portfolio, with an overview on our capital works programmes, and the lead on all business planning for the charities. Kathleen has a wealth of knowledge in the health sector, having a career spanning 25 years in the NHS.
"I’m excited to work with such brilliant teams at St Barnabas and Chestnut Tree House, where I can bring my professional experience into an organisation that I’m passionate about."
Since qualifying as a nurse in the early 1990s, Lisa has worked across a variety of specialities and healthcare providers. Her original speciality was acute care, working on the Burns Unit before undertaking a course in Intensive Care course. Around periods of living abroad and starting a family, she worked in the unit at Brighton before moving into cancer care. Lisa worked initially on the medical day case unit (now Amberley) at Worthing hospital, before moving to the County in Brighton to work in research, then as an Acute oncology nurse specialist and then Cancer Matron.
On completing an MSc in Acute Clinical Practice, Lisa moved to work at the Royal Marsden as a nurse consultant in Systemic Anti-Cancer Treatments. She then worked as Lead Nurse for Cancer, palliative and End of Life Care, before becoming Divisional Director of nursing for the new cancer division following the merger with Brighton & Sussex University hospitals NHS Trust. Her focus in her role will be to focus on quality, safety, governance, education and research for our services, as well as the development of the senior leadership structure for our clinical teams as we move forward with the merger.
Lisa is currently undertaking a part-time PhD through King’s College London and she loves exploring Europe with my husband by motorbike and would one day like to do a longer trip from Canada to South America!
Having previously worked in retail and financial services marketing, Rachel moved into the charity sector and has been in public fundraising roles for the last 12 years. As Director of Public Fundraising and Retail, Rachel manages the fundraising teams responsible for generating donations from members of the general public, through our retail shops, and also manages our supporter care, donations processing, and database teams. In her spare time Rachel is a reluctant runner and ran her first half marathon to raise money for Chestnut Tree House. At home she is kept company by her orange cat Billy, who enjoys following her around the house demanding treats and making an appearance on virtual meetings when she is working from home.
“We moved to Worthing when I was 10 years old, and I have grown up knowing about the incredible work the hospices do. I am regularly in awe of the unwavering support of our local community. Hearing about and seeing for myself the wonderful ways people raise money for us never fails to remind me of what an amazing organisation we are, and I am proud to work somewhere that makes such a difference to those in the area I live in.”
Clare joined St Barnabas in June 2023 and is a Chartered Member of CIPD and has over 20 years HR experience in a range of private and public sector organisations. Her role covers the delivery of the HR operations portfolio which includes HR and payroll administration, recruitment and employee relations management. Clare is enthusiastic in her approach and considers her key strengths are in developing strong working relationships with people to influence positive results for managers and their teams.
“I am incredibly proud to work for St Barnabas Hospices, and with colleagues from across whole the organisation who demonstrate on a daily basis their passion and commitment to what they do.”