Our Chair, Sarah Collis
Sarah is former CEO of Self Help UK and an active advocate for building effective partnership working across voluntary, statutory and private sectors.
Sarah has been involved with Healthwatch in the local area for over half a decade, as part of the Healthwatch Engagement and Liaison Partnership which helped to establish Healthwatch Nottingham.
Our Board
Dave Brennan – Trustee
Dave has significant experience working in community renewal in some of the most disadvantaged areas of the country. He has been CEO of several high profile regeneration programmes and 'not-for-profit' companies, redeveloping places and spaces for local communities.
Karla Capstick – Trustee
Karla is an experienced strategic, operational, and commissioning Director with a career spanning local government, community and public health, education, and the voluntary community sector. Karla has worked in early years, prevention, early intervention, and children's services for over 20 years. Karla advocates for child and parental voice in co-production and has significant experience in complex multi- partnership programmes and services.
Obai Kurd Ali – Trustee
Obai Kurd Ali is a human rights defender with over 13 years of experience working on human rights issues across the MENA region, with a focus on justice, accountability, community participation, and peace. He is a legal professional specialised in international human rights law and holds an LL.M. in Human Rights, Conflict, and Justice from SOAS, University of London. Obai currently serves as Legal Unit Manager at The Tahrir Institute for Middle East Policy; he has also been awarded the Chevening Scholarship, a prestigious program funded by the UK Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office for youth leaders.
Deborah Wilson – Trustee
Deborah is passionate about patient, public and community involvement in health and social care. Deborah has worked in community engagement and partnership development roles in Nottingham City, in Public Health in North Nottinghamshire and is currently working as a Patient Public Involvement and Engagement Officer at Health Innovation East Midlands.
Ben Roberts – Trustee
Ben is an NHS Manager at Nottingham Children’s Hospital and is studying part‑time for an MSc in Healthcare Leadership and Management. Previously, he ran a pro‑bono charity consultancy supporting organisations across health and community sectors. He has interests in systems thinking, AI, cross-sector collaboration and community engagement.
Debra F Douglas - Trustee
Debra is an Associate Registered Nutritionist with a background in science education and public health. After over 20 years as a secondary school department lead and physics teacher in London, she pursued an MSc in Nutrition and now works for a national integrated wellbeing organisation covering Nottinghamshire and beyond, supporting adult and family weight management, staff training, and service quality improvement. Passionate about reducing health inequalities and making evidence-based nutrition accessible, she champions co-production and culturally inclusive approaches to improve community wellbeing.
Jerome Douglas - Trustee
Jerome has worked across local councils, the NHS, and central government on projects and initiatives spanning health and social care, housing, sustainability, and digital transformation. He is passionate about making services work better for people and ensuring that communities are genuinely heard. With experience of both local and national programmes, Jerome is committed to improving lives through collaboration, inclusion, and practical change.
Ian Holden - Trustee
Ian’s background is in operations management - in other words, how we get the job done. He has extensive experience as a manager, as a university lecturer and as a civil servant. His special interest has been the constant demand on those working in the public sector to change the way they do their job - often for entirely political reasons - and the stress this can cause. His commitment to patient and public involvement in care provision is driven by a 50 year journey as a cancer survivor and underpinnned by a lifetime of engagement with various citizen groups striving to make their voices heard,
Past Board papers
We make the papers for our public Board meetings available online. We also publish a summary of what was discussed. Check out our past meetings to read more.