Meet the Team

Chris has over 30 years’ experience in the NHS, starting his career in Pathology as a Medical Laboratory Scientific Officer in 1988. Chris is renowned for progressing from a basic grade Biomedical Scientist, through the roles of Senior BMS, Chief BMS, Head BMS to a Directorate Manager within 5 years. Chris' final dedicated clinical role was as a Clinical Director in Pathology in the East Midlands before moving to the North West in 2008 as a Divisional Director for Diagnostics.

Chris has since had several senior roles both in Operations and Strategy, with a proven track record in delivering major transformation programmes. With a passion for digital transformation and its value for supporting better patient care and reducing health inequalities, he is now responsible for delivering major changes diagnostics programmes across Greater Manchester and has led on the establishment of the Greater Manchester Imaging and Pathology Networks. He is now Chief Officer and Chair of the GM Diagnostics Network, GM Community Diagnostics Centre Steering Group, as well as being SRO for several transformation programmes.

Katie is a highly driven, accomplished senior leader with extensive experience in delivering business change and strategic transformation portfolios which are aligned to national and local drivers.

Having originally starting her career as an NHS Specialist Biomedical Scientist in Microbiology, Katie has held a number of key roles within the NHS before transferring into transformation and programme management. Katie has extensive experience of leading diagnostic transformation programmes, establishing portfolio governance and assurance boards, developing cross organisational business cases within Pathology and Radiology services, and is currently responsible for leading the GM Diagnostic Network. 

With over 10 years’ experience in the NHS, Beth is a knowledgeable programme manager within Diagnostics. She has a strong background in structured project and programme methodologies and a proven track record in delivering projects within timescales and to budget.

Beth is a credible leader with extensive experience of managing wide scale system transformation programmes.  Beth is currently programme lead for the Greater Manchester Diagnostics Network, and within her current portfolio she is responsible for delivery of the GM Digital Pathology programme and Laboratory Information Management System (LIMS) programme. Beth is passionate about improving the quality of patient care, and is an advocate for innovation.

Charlotte joined the NHS in 2018 in an admin role supporting the development of Rochdale’s LCO before moving over to support the Diagnostics & Pharmacy Group Senior Management Team. Charlotte has now progressed to a Project Support Manager role supporting the GM Diagnostics Network key programmes

Following several years in the private sector Yvonne has almost eight years' NHS experience working across several Elective Care programmes. Yvonne started with delivery of RTT training to hospitals across the country which led to a diverse range of NHS programmes from EPR development to transformation work within trust, CCG, and local system settings. Having experience of each of these environments is proving invaluable to the development of the CDC programme.

Elaine is a Radiographer and has worked in the NHS for over 40 years, much of that time at Salford Royal.  She was the Imaging and Cardio-Respiratory Directorate Manager and led many transformation projects during that time.  She has extensive knowledge of PACS and the benefits it can provide in transforming services.  She is also the Radiology advisor to the GIRFT programme. 

Tanya has over 20 years’ experience working in Marketing and Communications and has spent her career working across the public and private sector. Tanya joined the team to oversee communications with our stakeholders and to raise the profile of the networks. With a Master’s degree in Public Relations, Tanya has worked with both UK and international brands to raise their profile and brand awareness through targeted campaigns. 

Tanya is an Associate member of the Chartered Institute of Marketing. 

Leighan brings a wealth of knowledge to the team and started her imaging career as a radiographer at Northampton General Hospital before joining the private sector as an application specialist and coming back to the NHS as Radiology Systems Lead at Pennine Acute Hospitals Trust.  Most recently, Leighan worked at East Lancashire Hospitals NHS Trust as Radiology and IT Performance Manager where the team implemented Sectra PACS throughout the radiology and breast imaging unit.

With responsibility for the continued operational delivery of the Greater Manchester imaging systems (including PACS and RIS), Leighan provides technical and subject matter expertise to drive, maintain and optimise all existing imaging systems across the GM region.

James started his NHS career in 2011 on the NHS Graduate Scheme, training in finance for 3 years at York and Scarborough Teaching Hospitals NHSFT. Following this he specialised in project finance, delivering QIPP schemes as a project accountant at Bolton CCG. Since joining the Greater Manchester Health and Social Care Partnership in 2017 James has financially managed an extensive portfolio of regional transformation projects focused on clinical and corporate services. These projects have delivered multi-million-pound savings for the Greater Manchester Health Care region, one of which being an award-winning procurement of a GM PACS, the largest of its kind in Europe. James currently continues to financially manage all the GM Diagnostics Network programmes.

Paul trained and worked as a radiographer before moving into radiology systems management, where he was responsible for the operation of PACS and RIS at East Cheshire NHS Trust for nearly 10 years. Whilst working as a Project Manager on the GM Sectra PACS implementation he helped to set up the GM Data Imaging Dataset which is now being used to analyse activity and performance across the network.

Gareth started his career as a Biomedical Scientist in Clinical Biochemistry, and has always had a passion for training and staff development, progressing in his career from a departmental training lead to a divisional training manager for a large Pathology service in Manchester. Gareth has over 10 years' of NHS laboratory experience with extensive experience in staff training and development and workforce planning, and uses this experience to help drive forward the workforce strategies for the Diagnostics workforce in Greater Manchester.

Catherine brings a wealth of knowledge to the team, as she started her imaging career as a radiographer at Manchester Royal Infirmary before working overseas and then returning to the UK to work in the private sector. Catherine returned to the NHS in Preston to specialise in MR, CT and Neuro Radiography before venturing into service management. Catherine gained a promotion and went on to become Radiology Service Manager at Bolton whilst also studying for her MBA.

With responsibility for providing imaging service advice, direction and leadership, Catherine will help shape the development of the network within Greater Manchester and more widely across the Northwest as Regional Radiographer.

Dr Rajesh Rajendran is Associate Medical Director for Infection Control at Manchester University NHS Foundation Trust, and a Consultant Microbiologist. He is also the Clinical Head of Laboratory Medicine for Manchester University NHS Foundation Trust, overseeing all disciplines within Pathology. Dr. Rajendran also holds the role of Senior Lecturer at Manchester University for medical microbiology, infection prevention and control as well as an examiner at the Manchester Medical school.

He was awarded the Membership of the faculty of public health for his work on COVID 19 and antimicrobial resistance and is actively involved in a Commonwealth Project in Ghana. He has been leading on the COVID 19 management from a clinical and infection control point of view in the trusts he is working.

Sam has spent the last 30 years in the Civil Service working across a range of Working Age Benefits in a variety of roles.  Most recently her role involved working on the development of an implementation process and technical training package for a specialist benefit review exercise.

Sam has also worked in quality management, producing frameworks to support changes in ways of working to improve performance. Sam has a passion for public service and achieving improvements which provide better outcomes and reduce inequalities for users.

Having begun her NHS career in Clinical Biochemistry almost 40 years ago, and taking time out to develop skills in sales, recruitment and education, Julie has a wealth of knowledge and experience to bring to her role as one of the first Pathology Practice Educators in England.

She has spent the last 8 years as Pathology Training Facilitator at Northern Care Alliance and now hopes to widen that supportive role to pathology training, development and engagement across all GM Trusts.

Dr Sarah O’Shea graduated from The Royal London Hospital BSc MB BS going on to achieve MRCP before undertaking Radiology training at Manchester University. Gaining FRCR in 1999 she undertook a fellowship at Southampton General before returning to Manchester as Consultant Radiologist at Manchester Royal Infirmary. She is a subspecialised radiologist with expertise in Abdominal Radiology including Hepatobiliary, Upper and Lower GI and bariatric imaging, with non-vascular interventional expertise.

Currently, Sarah is Medical Director for the Clinical and Scientific Services at Manchester University NHS Foundation Trust and has seen huge changes in Imaging technology throughout her career with enormous growth in demand for services.

Sarah strongly believes that bringing radiologists across Greater Manchester together within the Network will optimise patient access to high quality imaging within the system.

Angela joins the team as PA to the Chief Officer and Programme Director, after spending 18 years in the NHS in various administration and PA roles.

Angela first joined the NHS from the private sector in 2005 as administrator on the Cardiac Intensive Care Unit at Manchester Royal Infirmary. From there Angela has held roles at Middleton and Rochdale PCT Continuing Healthcare team, Royal Manchester Children’s Hospital and North Manchester General Hospital.

Angela’s role at the Greater Manchester Imaging and Pathology Networks involves diary management for the Chief Officer as well as providing administrative support for the rest of the team.

Jack has spent the last six years working as a business administrator across various departments in private healthcare. In his most recent role, Jack worked alongside the fulfilment and governance team, to support the development and implementation of a new CRM database which was utilised across the business.

Eager to move across to the public sector, Jack was looking for a role that aligned with his values and his strong desire to contribute to positive patient outcomes. Jack is really excited to be part of the NHS Network team and is looking forward to developing his skillset and making the most of future opportunities.