Non-Executive Directors,
Mersey Care NHS Foundation Trust

United Kingdom

Mersey Care is one of the most innovative and progressive NHS trusts in the country.

Mersey Care is a community mental health, learning disability, autism and physical health provider offering a wide range of community health services together with specialist mental health services across North West England and beyond. Our vision is to lead the way in perfect, whole person care that helps people of all ages live healthier lives.

In seven Place areas – Halton, Knowsley, Liverpool, St Helens, Sefton, Warrington and West Lancashire - we provide a range of specialist mental health and learning disabilities inpatient services and community physical health, mental health, learning disabilities, addiction services together with acquired brain injury services. We also provide secure mental health services for Cheshire and Merseyside, and specialist learning disability and autism services across the North West. We are one of only three trusts in the country that provide high secure mental health services.

As with all NHS organisations, we are increasingly working in partnership with our neighbouring providers, for example through the Cheshire & Merseyside Provider Collaborative, the North Mersey Provider Partnership and the Cheshire & Wirral Partnership / Mersey Care Provider Partnership.

Over the past ten years Mersey Care has grown significantly, and our external environment has continued to change, with the lasting impact of a pandemic and associated social and economic changes, and the creation of Integrated Care Systems and ‘Place’ based decision making for health and care services.

We know and understand more about population health and the needs of our communities than we did a decade ago and will require the collective efforts of our partners to address and help people to live healthier lives.

In 2023, we refreshed our strategy to set out what kind of organisation we want to be in 2028. Given our size and complexity, it’s never been more important to have a simple set of focussed priorities to help us get the basics right balanced alongside ambitious goals for the years ahead. The strategy wheel on this page summarises our vision and strategy.

Although Mersey Care has around 1,000 learning disability, mental health and physical care beds, we are fundamentally a community-based organisation, key to health and wider prosperity in the Places we serve.

We have a tremendous opportunity to consider ‘total health’ for the people we serve - wellbeing, physical health, mental health, learning disabilities and neurodiversity - and to become more preventative and co-ordinated in the care we provide through our unique blend of all-age services and relationships with our partners. Our expertise in data and technology, for example in our leading telehealth platform, will allow us to transform care for people with long term conditions; and our success in attracting new investment in mental health research will allow us to bring new interventions and treatments to our communities.

The Trust is continuing to deliver a programme of organisational and service transformation to deliver our strategy and to significantly improve the quality of the services we provide and safely reduce cost as we do so. We call this continuous improvement in quality and cost, striving for perfect care. We also aim to play a full part in the health and social care economies we serve by promoting and driving greater integration between mental and physical health and social care.

‍Dear Candidate
Thank you for your interest in joining the Board of Mersey Care NHS Foundation Trust as a Non-Executive Director. We are recruiting to two roles at an important time for the Trust, and I am glad that you are considering whether one of them might be right for you.
Mersey Care is one of the largest providers of mental health, learning disability, community physical health and high secure services in England. We serve more than 1.4 million people across Cheshire and Merseyside, provide specialist services to a wider population, and employ around 12,000 colleagues across our communities. Our purpose is to deliver safe, effective and compassionate care that improves lives and helps to address the health inequalities our communities experience.
You would be joining us at an exciting time. We are well led and financially disciplined, and we work in one of the most pressured health and care systems in the country. We have grown considerably in recent years, and our focus now is on strengthening the quality and safety of our services, and doing so at pace, while continuing to build our culture. Our commitment to a restorative, just and learning culture is central to how we lead, how we improve and how we support our people. I have high ambitions for what we can achieve together for our communities, and these two appointments matter a great deal to that. We already have a capable and credible unitary Board, and these appointments are about building on that strength and widening the range of views around the table.
The first role is for a Non-Executive Director who is a practising or recent clinician. You would chair our Quality Committee, so we are looking for someone with genuine depth in quality and safety who understands the risks that come with services of this kind. Experience in mental health, learning disability or community services would be an advantage. However, we would also welcome interest from clinicians with wider experience, provided you bring a sound understanding of mental health, learning disability and autism services, and the credibility to lead the Committee. We want to have immediate impact on quality and safety, so this is a role for someone who can get to grips with the issues at pace.
The second role is for a Non-Executive Director with experience of engaging and working with multi-ethnic communities and staff groups. This is about bringing the community voice into our decisions, and using your experience to help inform our services, our values and our culture. You would join our People Committee, and do not need to have been a NED previously, but you should have an understanding of both sound governance and working with your fellow Board members as a team. What matters is that you can offer insight and challenge grounded in the experience of the communities we serve.
For both roles, I care as much about approach as about background. I am looking for people who share our values and understand what public service means in practice, in how we work with our staff, our service users and our communities. Our new NEDs must lead with humility, work collegiately, and put Mersey Care and the people we serve first.
I hope that the chance to make a meaningful contribution to health and care across Cheshire and Merseyside is one that appeals to you, and I look forward to learning more about what you could bring to Mersey Care as a part of our Board.
With best wishes
Sheena Cumiskey
Chair
Mersey Care NHS Foundation Trust
Please click below to review and download these documents:
Non-Executive Director - Clinical
Non-Executive Director - Diversity and Engagement
Closing date:‍ ‍4th September 2026
Stakeholder session: w/c 28th September 2026 - TBC
Final Interviews: 5th & 6th October 2026
Please ensure you have made a note of the final interview date(s). We recommend that you bookmark this microsite, as any potential updates regarding the role will be posted online.
All applications must include:
• A full curriculum vitae/resume
• Quoting the relevant role reference number: A042139
• A covering letter highlighting the aspects of the job description and Mersey Care NHS Foundation Trust that particularly attract you to the post (Microsoft Word document)
• Contact details for three referees; these will not be contacted without your permission. (References should validate a minimum period of six years’ employment)
• A completed Equal Opportunities Monitoring Form (which you will be redirected to once you have submitted your application) *
Right to work checks
If you are successfully shortlisted, our partner, Yoti, will contact you to complete an online right to work check. This is a quick and secure process, ensuring that all necessary legal requirements are met before proceeding further in the recruitment process.
*Monitoring
One of Alumni Global’s and Mersey Care NHS Foundation Trust’s objectives is to ensure that its workforce is reflective of the local community and therefore we actively encourage applications from under-represented groups. So that we can successfully achieve these aims, while it is not mandatory we would encourage every applicant to complete the “Equal Opportunities Monitoring form” so that we can measure the effectiveness of our efforts. The Recruiting Manager does not have access to the Monitoring Information Sections of the application form at any stage of the process and the information provided will be kept entirely confidential.
For a confidential discussion on this role please contact:
Thomas Patterson, Managing Director or Beth Stickney, Principal Researcher whose details are at the bottom of this page.
Candidate adjustment
If you require any reasonable adjustments to be made as part of the recruitment process please can you advise us so that we can ensure this is accommodated.
Personal Data
In line with GDPR, we ask that you do NOT send us any information that can identify children or any of your sensitive personal data (racial or ethnic origin, political opinions, religious or philosophical beliefs, trade union membership, data concerning health or sex life and sexual orientation, genetic and/or biometric data) in your CV and application documentation.