New chiefs for charity

May 17 2007

By The Journal

Nigel Wright recruitment agency was recently involved in the appointments of a new chairman and chief executive officer for the North Northumberland Hospice, an independent charity which provides support to patients and their carers living with life threatening illnesses. Originally the brainchild of a group of local clinicians, the hospice now runs services from its two centres in Alnwick and Berwick. At present, day care is provided four days a week (two days in each location) with additional appointments being available out of these times to patients and their carers. Here they can access supportive counselling as well as a range of cognitive and complementary therapies, including aromatherapy, massage and relaxation, alongside a variety of creative activities. A much used lymphoedema service also provides assistance with assessment and management, using compression garments and massage techniques. Future developments are reliant on increasing both the funding and awareness of the hospice within the local community and part of the remit of the new appointments is to establish the way forward whilst building on the established strong support already in place. Sandra Nattrass, treasurer trustee, said: "North Northumberland Hospice has been running as a charity successfully for 12 years but we, as trustees, felt the time had come when we had to look to the future of the organisation and the way forward. A decision was taken to appoint a chief executive to facilitate this process. At the same time, our previous long serving chairman had indicated that he wished to stand down from his position and it was felt that going out to advertisement with Nigel Wright could be the ideal route to sourcing an individual who would pick up the reins of the organisation alongside the new chief executive officer. "We are delighted with the appointment of Don Pinchbeck as our new chairman, who has many years' experience of strategic management, and also welcome Susan Bridle, as our new chief executive."