Our Chair, Harsha Kotecha
Harsha worked in the private sector for 15 years working as an analyst in financial services before moving to the public sector working in education and training. Currently she works as a freelance trainer delivering course to support employability, wellbeing and personal development.
Harsha is passionate about improving health and social care and has been championing the patient voice for over 15 years in various roles both nationally with NHS England and locally through her work with patient and community groups. She has built a reputation for forming productive partnerships with providers and commissioners whilst continuing to challenge and advocate for service users.
Portfolio area: Health – Integrated Care Board (ICB) and University Hospitals of Leicester NHS Trust (UHL)
Our Board
Vice Chair, Fiona Barber
Fiona has spent over 40 years working in the public and voluntary sectors across the East Midlands and at national level, with experience in health, social care, public safety and regulatory issues.
Currently she works with Leicester City Council as an Independent Member of their Standards Committee and as a Co-opted Trustee with the Royal Air Forces Association, leading on the provision of Wellbeing.
Fiona’s’ first career was policing, particularly operational command, and on retirement she moved into the voluntary sector working as a Director of Services and sitting on a number of groups aimed at developing services for people primarily over 50.
For a number of years, she brought external strategic perspective and challenge to NHS England as a member of the Primary Care Strategic Oversight Group and also the Clinical Priorities Advisory Group.
Portfolio area: Adult Social Care and Health Overview and Scrutiny – County
Kash Bhayani
Kash’s’ motivation to get involved at Healthwatch stems from his keen interest in the history, heritage and future of Leicester and Leicestershire, to ensure a high quality of life for its residents. His board level experience is both as Chair and Secretary in voluntary sector organisations.
Kash’s early career was in social care in various settings and client groups including problems with drink, drugs, offending and mental health. Later, he worked with Police Forces around England and Wales conducting psychometric testing and behavioural assessments in scenario based exercises. In recent years his area of interest is Linguistic Psychology in therapy and coaching.
Portfolio area: Adult Social Care and Health Overview and Scrutiny – City
Amanda Bland
Amanda is proud to be a Great Ormond Street Hospital (GOS) trained Registered Sick Children's Nurse and came to Leicester as a GOS student to complete the Registered General Nurse part of her training over forty years ago and has lived locally since.
She has a wealth of clinical and managerial experience in Health and Social Care with 20 years experience in quality improvement across provider and commissioner organisations and in NHS England and the CQC. Patients and Users have always been at the center of her work.
She holds a Masters Degree in Quality and Service Improvement in Healthcare with her final thesis based around patient and public involvement and as a Board Member strives to ensure that every one who wants to speak about their health or social care experience is heard.
Portfolio area: Leicestershire Partnership NHS Trust (LPT)
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.