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Meet our leadership team

We are governed by a Trust Board which meets bi-monthly and is made up of 19 members — eight non-executive directors, 10 executive directors (including our chief executive).

Our Board of Directors comprises a Chair, non-executive directors and our Chief Executive Officer, Chief Operating Officer, Chief Finance Officer, Chief Medical Officer and Chief Quality Officer.

The Board is responsible for setting the strategic direction, culture and organisational performance of our Service and is accountable for ensuring that the Service delivers safe, high-quality care and gives patients the best care.

Our Executive Committee consists of the executive directors on the Trust Board and six non-executive directors.

Our Trust Board

Andrew Trotter OBE QPM, Chair

Andrew Trotter joined us as Chair in July 2022.

Andrew has 40 years’ experience of leading police services in London and Kent, having worked for British Transport Police for 10 years from 2004, serving as Chief Constable and Deputy Chief Constable. Prior to this, he served more than 30 years in the Kent and Metropolitan police services, including six years as Deputy Assistant Commissioner with the Met.

During his time with the police services, Andrew worked alongside London Ambulance Service teams, including for the 2012 Olympics and 7 July terror attacks.

Andrew has been Chair of Oxleas NHS Foundation Trust for seven years and will continue in this role. The Trust delivers community and mental health services in south east London and prison health services in London and Kent.

You can add Andy on Twitter: @andytrotter51.

To contact Andrew’s office, please email [email protected].

Rommel Pereira, Deputy Chair

Portrait image of Rommel Pereira

Rommel has a track record in finance, business transformation, technology, customer service, procurement and business development.

Rommel is a chartered accountant and retired as Finance Director of the Bank of England at the end of 2018. Prior to this he was an Executive Director of the Financial Services Compensation Scheme and Group Chief Operating Officer for the Metropolitan Housing Partnership. His earlier career included senior management roles at JP Morgan Chase.

He currently holds Non-Executive directorships at One Housing Group, Homerton University Hospital NHS Foundation Trust and The National Archives.

Rommel is the Chair of the Audit Committee.

Sheila Doyle, Non-Executive Director

Sheila joined the Service in February 2017 and has over 30 years of experience at executive and board level in organisations including Norton Rose Fulbright, BP, Royal Mail, IBM and Deutsche Bank.

She specialises in delivering transformational change through the application of innovative technology solutions. She has managed international teams of 400 employees, delivered numerous complex change programmes and integrated diverse technology platforms in support of mergers and acquisitions.

Sheila spent a number of years in Hong Kong, Singapore and Australia providing consulting services to the Financial Services and Manufacturing sector. She served as a non-executive director on the board of Companies House and was also a member of the Audit committee.

Sheila is currently the Chief Information Officer at Deloitte and is the Chair of the Logistics and Infrastructure Committee and Digital999 Programme Assurance Committee.

Dr Anne Rainsberry CBE, Non-Executive Director

Portrait shot of Anne Rainsberry

With a professional background in HR and management, Dr Anne Rainsberry has 32 years’ experience working in the NHS at local, regional and national levels.

Before joining healthcare and life sciences consultancy Carnall Farrar as managing partner in 2017, Anne was London regional director at NHS England for four years where she led major service changes in the capital including the reconfiguration of cancer and cardiac services.

Previously, Anne was chief executive of NHS NW London and Deputy Chief Executive of NHS London and through her career has held a number of managerial NHS roles in London and the south east.

Anne was awarded a CBE in 2017 for services to the NHS.

Professor Karim Brohi, Non-Executive Director

Professor Brohi is a consultant Trauma Surgeon at Barts Health NHS Trust, Director of the London Trauma System at NHS England (London), and Director of the Centre for Trauma Sciences at Queen Mary University of London.

As a surgeon, Karim provides care for patients with vascular diseases and traumatic injury. As a scientist, Karim conducts research in the field of Trauma while supervising a range of researchers who are investigating different aspects of traumatic disease.

Karim studied Medicine at University College Hospital London.

Bob Alexander, Non-Executive Director

During a career in finance and accounting spanning more than 30 years, Bob Alexander operated at board level across public sector organisations including the NHS, the Civil Service and Metropolitan Police.

He retired from the role of Deputy Chief Executive of NHS Improvement in 2018 but continues to perform numerous non-executive roles including Independent Chair of Sussex Health and Care Partnership; non-executive director of Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust, and non-executive director of Community Health Partnerships Ltd.

He has an MBA and is a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy.

Dr Mark Spencer, Non-Executive Director

Dr Mark Spencer has been a GP for 40 years and continues to enjoy clinical work.

He is also Vice Chair of the London Clinical Senate – the clinical leadership for strategy and assurance for quality of service changes across the capital and has had various roles at NHS England (London), including Deputy Regional Medical Director and Medical Director for Quality and Service Design.

He has also worked in Hospital inspection teams for the Care Quality Commission, has advised the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) on commissioning guidelines and has been part of the London Urgent and Emergency Care Clinical and Professional Leaders Group covering the whole of London for the past seven years.

As part of his new role at London Ambulance Service, Mark chairs the Service’s Quality Assurance Committee, which monitors the quality of patient care as well as encouraging new improvements and innovations.

Shera Chok, Non-Executive Director

A portrait image of Shera Chok

Shera is a GP in East London and the former Chief Medical Officer at NHS Digital. She started the multi award-winning Shuri Network in 2019 as she is passionate about increasing diversity, innovation and safety and to encourage other women from minority ethnic groups to lead and engage with digital transformation.

Shera has held national leadership roles with NHS England and the Department of Health and Social Care and led complex national and local programmes to improve patient outcomes and pathways. She worked at Barts Health, the largest acute trust in the NHS at the time as Director of Primary Care for six years, helping to improve patient care across organisational boundaries.

She is an international Fellow with the Robert Bosch Foundation in Berlin and has won awards for her contribution to healthcare, workforce development and EDI.  She has volunteered as a clinician with NGOs working in war and disaster zones.

Executive directors and directors

Daniel Elkeles, Chief Executive Officer

Daniel, who joined LAS in August 2021, has significant experience in the NHS and healthcare. He was formerly Chief Executive of Epsom and St Helier Hospitals NHS Trust, where he served for nearly seven years.

Prior to this, he was Accountable Officer for five of the clinical commissioning groups in North West London.

During his time at Epsom and St Helier hospitals, Daniel led on plans, and secured funding, to build a brand new £500 million Specialist Emergency Care Hospital in Sutton. He also oversaw a significant improvement in patient care, quality, finance and leadership, culminating in the organisation being rated as ‘Good’ by the Care Quality Commission.

Daniel also led on many initiatives to improve culture and morale, resulting in Epsom and St Helier having strong scores in the staff survey in measures about equality, diversity and inclusion, as well as staff health and wellbeing.

To contact Daniel’s office, please email: [email protected]

Follow Daniel on Twitter @danielelkeles

Dr Fenella Wrigley MBE, Deputy Chief Executive and Chief Medical Officer

Dr Fenella Wrigley MBE was appointed the Chief Medical Officer for London Ambulance Service in March 2016 having been the interim Medical Director since January 2015. She has also been a Consultant in Emergency Medicine since 2006.

She joined us as Assistant Medical Director for control services in 2008 and became Deputy Medical Director in 2010. Fenella has led on our development of urgent care, clinically overseeing the introduction of a Clinical Hub to provide clinical support and ‘hear and treat’, and our step-in provision for NHS 111 South East London.

She is also the nominated officer responsible to oversee medication error incident reporting and is the Caldicott Guardian.

Rakesh Patel, Deputy Chief Executive and Chief Finance Officer

Rakesh joined us from Epsom and St Helier University Hospital Trust where he was accountable for planning, monitoring and overseeing the delivery of the financial strategy. In addition, he was finance lead and Board member for Surrey Downs Integrated Care Partnership, Surrey Downs Health and Care and Sutton Health and Care – both provider alliances delivering adult community services.

Rakesh has over 30 years’ experience of financial management in the NHS, including senior roles at West Middlesex University Hospital and in wider healthcare like Barnet, Enfield and Haringey Mental Health Trust.

He is used to working closely with clinicians across service development projects, developing new financial models and empowering managers to use the right information, financial systems and business planning tools to build robust and sustainable plans for the future.

He successfully led the financial recovery at Epsom and St. Helier’s, ensuring they are now on a course of financial stability resulting in the CQC rating the hospital as ‘Good’ for use of resources in 2019.

He also led the financial case for the Trust’s bid to for a new hospital programme, where he worked with colleagues in the Trust and wider health system to develop the plans.

Pauline Cranmer QAM, Chief Paramedic

Pauline has held a number of strategic roles at LAS including Director of Ambulance Services and Director of Clinical Education. She was promoted to the role of interim Chief Paramedic in December 2023.

Pauline joined London Ambulance Service in 1994 as a technician. She qualified as a paramedic and worked her way up to one of the Service’s most senior positions.

She is an experienced strategic commander and led the response to the Westminster Bridge terror attack.

In 2019, Pauline was awarded the prestigious Queen’s Ambulance Service Medal, which honours those who have shown outstanding ability, merit and conduct in their role.

Mark Easton, Director of Corporate Affairs

Mark has had a long career in health services including chief executive roles in acute hospitals as well as stints in community and integrated services.

He has also worked as a regulator and commissioner of health services, most recently as the accountable officer of the largest commissioning group in the country.

Mark has also worked as a consultant, especially in the fields of strategy and governance.

Damian McGuinness, Chief People Officer

Damian joined us in June 2021 to lead our People and Culture directorate, in a crucial role taking forward our work on HR, Recruitment, Organisational Development (OD) and Health and Wellbeing.

Damian joins from Bart’s Health NHS Trust, where he was the Director of People for The Royal London and Mile End Hospitals.

Damian brings a wealth of experience of the London healthcare system, having worked in HR & OD positions within Acute, Mental Health, and Commissioning London NHS Trusts over the past 20 + years.’

Roger Davidson, Chief Strategy and Transformation Officer

Photograph of Roger Davidson

Roger joined us in January 2022 and will focus on developing a strategic vision for our Service to build beyond our existing organisational strategy which comes to an end at the end of 2023.

In his most recent position at NHS England, Roger played a national leadership role in the development of the 42 ICSs, which now cover the whole of England and are set to be put on a statutory footing next year.

Since the start of 2016, he has worked with health and care leaders across the country on system transformation strategy and policy, system leadership development, clinical and professional leadership, local government and voluntary sector partnerships, public involvement, communications and stakeholder relationships.

Prior to this, Roger was Director of Communications and Head of Media and Public Affairs at NHS England.

Earlier in his career, Roger also held senior communications and public affairs roles at organisations including the NHS Confederation, the Care Quality Commission and the Confederation of British Industry.

He is also a Trustee at the English Football League (EFL) Trust, the charity overseeing the community organisations of the 72 EFL football clubs in England which run health and wellbeing initiatives across the country.

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