Marie Curie appoints new trustees

Marie Curie is delighted to welcome five new trustees to its Board of Trustees, Dr Rachel Burman (Consultant in Palliative Care at Kings College Hospital NHS Foundation Trust), John Compton (former Chief Executive of the Northern Ireland Health and Social Care Board), Patricia Lee (Chief Executive at Embrace Group), Steve Carson (Director of Retail and Customer Operations at Sainsbury's Argos) and Richard Flint (Chief Executive at Kelda Group). 

Dr Rachel Burman FRCP MA 
Dr Rachel Burman has been a Consultant in Palliative Care for over 20 years. She has worked in a variety of settings including community homes and hospice and has been at King’s College Hospital for the last 12 years. She has a particular clinical and research interest in palliative care for people with a non-cancer diagnosis, especially neurodegenerative disorders. She is an integral part of the MND Clinic at King’s. 

She also has an interest in ethics and has an MA in Medical Ethics and Law as well as a Law degree and these, in combination with her clinical experience, inform her role in teaching and training as well as positions held past and present including with the Association for Palliative Medicine of Great Britain and Ireland, University of London Senate Panel and as a previous King’s College Hospital Foundation Trust governor.  

Steve Carson
Steve’s retail career started as a lad, helping out in his parents’ grocery shop before joining Sainsbury’s in 1988 as a trainee manager. He held a variety of store, regional and head office management roles at Sainsbury’s, culminating as Managing Director for the London and east zone. He joined Argos as Retail General Manager for the central region in 2006 and moved to Homebase as Head of Retail in 2010 before becoming General Manager of the Group’s Home Store & More operation. He was appointed Argos Retail Operations Director in 2012 and became Director of Retail and Customer Operations at Sainsbury's Argos in 2013. He was appointed to the Group Executive Board in June 2014. 

John Compton CBE
John has worked in the Northern Ireland Health & Social Care system for over 40 years. He has held a number of positions with Health & Social Care Trusts. Latterly, he was Chief Executive of the Regional Health & Social Care Board, the commissioning organisation for Northern Ireland. In that role, he led the development of Transforming Your Care – a strategy for the future shape of Health & Social Care in Northern Ireland. 

In 2013, he was awarded the CBE for services to Health & Social Care. 

Richard Flint BA (Hons), MSc
Richard was appointed Chief Executive of Kelda Group and Yorkshire Water Services Ltd in April 2010. Prior to that he was the Chief Operating Officer of Yorkshire Water (2008-2010) and Director of the Company’s Water Business Unit (2003-2008). He is Chairman of Kelda Water Services, Keyland Developments, a trustee of the global water and sanitation charity WaterAid, a Board member of the water industry trade body Water UK, Chairman of the Business in the Community (BITC) Advisory Board for Yorkshire and the Humber and a member of the BITC Water Taskforce. 

Richard's career has had a heavy emphasis on leading change and improving business performance. More recently he has focused on preparing the Kelda Group for the changes being brought about by legislative and regulatory reform. 

Patricia Lee
Trish has over 35 years’ experience in the health and social care environment. She started her career as a nurse and worked in the NHS as a clinician, a manager and finally as a director of a Trust in East London. From there, she joined Nuffield Health and spent 15 years in various roles including Hospital Director, Regional Director, Commercial Director, Group Clinical Director and ultimately as Chief Executive of the Hospitals Division. 

She is currently Chief Executive of Embrace Group, an independent provider of health and social care providing residential, educational and supported living services to children and adults. Trish is passionate about ensuring people engaging with services receive personalised care and support of the highest quality.  

John Varley, Chair of the Board of Trustees at Marie Curie, said: “We are delighted to welcome such experienced colleagues to the Board of Trustees and look forward to drawing on their wealth of expertise to help Marie Curie to meet the growing needs of people and their families living with a terminal illness.”