TSA’s New Skills-Based Board

B​y Paul Burstow, TSA President and Chair of the Board

2​6 September 2022

When TSA’s new board met recently I was struck by the range of lived experience in the room.

Almost all directors have been – or still are - informal carers to their elderly parents and that includes our three newly appointed non-executives: Fiona Brown, Steve Gates and Ros Roughton.

In fact, our board feels representative of a large slice of the population who work very hard whilst caring for ageing mums and dads - trying their hardest to help them live happy, independent lives, in their own homes.

Each of our directors sees the huge potential TEC has to transform care and it’s this recognition, combined with real-life experience and extensive professional expertise that makes TSA’s new board so strong.

But how did we get here?

Several months ago, myself and Alyson Scurfield commissioned a governance review of TSA and that process led us to look again at our board.

Our aim was to build TSA’s credibility and influence but to do that we needed to become an independent advocate, working for the benefit of the entire TEC sector as well as the people and families we support.

Following a competitive recruitment with a strong field of applicants, our new board members have been appointed on the basis of their skill set and the contribution they can make to driving the sector forward.

That means they will help our sector to thrive, but they will also challenge TSA members to be bolder and move faster and that can only be done from an objective and independent standpoint.

So, who has joined TSA’s board?

Fiona Brown worked as a local authority Executive Director for Neighbourhoods for over eight years and has significant experience in housing, social care and health, leading systems and driving integration. She is known for her work on strategic commissioning and creating innovative community solutions for independent living.

Steve Gates is Managing Director at Taking Care, one of the largest private digital monitoring services in the UK. Two thirds of Taking Care’s 100,000 customers are private payers, so he brings extensive experience of the consumer market. Previously Steve led companies in the private health, insurance and financial services markets and he has a strong track record in business growth.

Ros Roughton has extensive knowledge of both the adult social care sector and the NHS. Most recently she was Director-General of Adult Social Care at the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) and before this, she was Executive Director of NHS Commissioning at NHS England, where she had responsibility for general practice, dentistry, pharmacy, national screening and immunisation programmes, armed forces healthcare and healthcare in the criminal justice system. Ros is currently Non-Executive Director at Sheffield Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust.

Fiona, Steve and Ros join our existing board members: Lynne Douglas, CEO of Bield Housing & Care; Martin Jones, UK CEO of Home Instead; Kevin McSorley, Head of Radius CONNECT 24; Chris Monks, Finance Director at TSA; Roy Sandbach, past-President of the Industry and Technology Division of the Royal Society of Chemistry; Alyson Scurfield, CEO of TSA; Madeleine Starr, Director of Business Development and Innovation at Carers UK and Sam Watkins, Managing Director of Delta Wellbeing.

As we develop TSA’s business plan for the next three years, the knowledge and knowhow of our new board will be invaluable. When we met recently, I saw just how passionate they all are about making a difference for people who use TEC. That is their overriding mission and one I can’t wait to work with them on.