St Peter & St James is governed by a Board of Trustees responsible for the long-term planning of our work. All of the Trustees are volunteers with expertise in areas relating directly to our work, such as nursing, finance, insurance, and fundraising. Trustees attend a monthly meeting at St Peter & St James and also sit on sub-committees. They represent St Peter & St James at various fundraising events.
Trustees
Keith Banbury OBE, FCMI, MIoD, Hon AIC - Chairman
Keith is a senior manager experienced at operating at Board level in both Executive and Non-Executive positions in the charity and not-for-profit sector. He has strong leadership, strategic planning and policy making skills. For 12 years, Keith was Chief Executive of the Chartered Institute of Building (CIOB), a professional chartered institution in construction with some 40,000 members worldwide and an educational charity. In 2001, he was appointed Chief Executive of the British Parking Association (BPA), based in Haywards Heath, with the specific brief to raise the profile and standing of the industry and the BPA. Keith was awarded an OBE for services to parking in the Queen’s 2006 Birthday Honours and, currently, undertakes consultancy work. He is a member of the Council of the BPA, a member of the Enforcement Law Reform Group – a body looking at regulating the enforcement sector and based at the House of Lords and Chairman of the Danehill Village Hall.
Harriet Creamer - Vice Chair
Harriet is a lawyer by profession: she has a law degree from Cambridge University and worked for many years at a large City law firm, where she was a partner and took on a range of management roles. Since leaving the firm in 2009, she has worked as an independent consultant advising professional services firms on a range of management issues. Harriet has lived in Sussex for over 20 years. She is married with three grown up sons, all of whom were at school locally. For many years she was a governor of a local prep school and also spent 15 years as a trustee of the Friends of Fletching Parish Church (including three years as chairman of the trustees). She is currently a governor of a state sixth form in Stratford, East London, and a trustee of the Bach Choir, with which she also sings. She is committed to supporting the local community and is very much looking forward to her involvement with the hospice.
Dr Nick Barrie
Nick has been a GP in Cuckfield since 1980, and retired from fulltime work recently. He was also a Clinical Director for Horsham and Mid Sussex CCG and clinical lead for Informatics. As a GP, Nick has referred many patients to the hospice and has a good understanding of hospice care and the patient journey. In his spare time, Nick is learning to play golf, a task that is so far proving trickier than he had thought! He has always been interested in photography and aviation, and has managed to combine these, having recently qualified as a commercial Drone pilot. Nick is married with two adult children.
Kate Birrell
Kate works in policy and strategy for the Care Quality Commission, working on end of life care policy. She recently led a national review of inequalities in end of life care. Kate has worked in health and social care regulation for eight years, and is also a Fitness to Practise panel member for the General Dental Council. Prior to working in regulation, Kate worked for international development organisations supporting evidence-based policy in health, and she has a degree in social anthropology. Kate has a strong interest interest in tackling inequalities in health, and is studying for a Masters in Public Health. Kate is originally from Scotland, and has lived in Lewes for 12 years with her two children, two dogs and a cat.
Andrew Cook
Andrew has been a Chartered Accountant and Chartered Tax Advisor for more than 30 years. After qualifying and gaining experience in public practice, he spent over 25 years in senior finance, tax and treasury roles with various FTSE-250 public companies in the business services and retail sectors. Andrew is married to Sally, with two grown up sons. Born in Cuckfield, he has spent most of his adult life in Mid Sussex, living in Lindfield for the last 20 years. Since taking early retirement at the end of 2013 Andrew has supported his local community as treasurer of both the local village hall and the scout group.
David Crudge
David’s working career spanned 40 years, exclusively in the retail sector, where he undertook management roles in a number of corporate organisations. Following retirement in 2009, he has sought to pursue opportunities in the local voluntary sector, including roles in community dispute resolution with the West Sussex Mediation Service and casework on behalf of the BHS Pension Scheme. Having been a trustee with St Peter & St James Hospicesince 2013, David is looking to harness his considerable commercial and retail experience in making a positive contribution towards the further enhancement of the hospice shops’ critical revenue-raising activities.
Tim Hancock
Tim is a former partner of Rothschild, the global investment banking group and is now senior independent director of a listed company, based in Crawley, and a non-executive director of two private companies. Tim also acts as a senior adviser to a private equity fund. He became a trustee of St Peter & St James in 2012 and chairs the Finance Committee. Tim is married with three grown-up sons and was born in Cuckfield, but now lives near Lewes.
Jo July
Jo’s 35-year career spans management consulting, marketing, communications and human resources. She has worked in the public and private sectors, including health-focused roles at the Health Education Authority, PPP Healthcare and the BBC. Jo has a Master’s Degree in Marketing and has been a visiting lecturer in Marketing at the University of Greenwich Business School. She is now working for BT as an HR Consultant. Jo lives in Burgess Hill with her two young daughters and is a passionate supporter of the hospice, having had a close personal experience of the wide range of services we provide.
Deirdre Prower
Deirdre qualified from the Florence Nightingale School of Nursing, St Thomas Hospital, in 1979. Initially, she worked in the hospital settling on the acute medical and surgical wards. After she married and had her three children, she became a nurse in general practice. She was keen to develop the role of the nurse within primary care, undertaking a degree to become an Advanced Nurse Practitioner in 2003. Since 2005, Deirdre has worked in Brighton and, most notably, was responsible for setting up and running a nurse-led surgery. She has a particular interest in people living with long-term conditions and is committed to integrated, patient-centred care within the local community. Until her recent retirement, Deirdre was the clinical lead for Brighton and Hove Clincial Commissioning Group, covering the areas of community services and dementia. She has recently moved to Lewes having lived in Chailey for the last 20 years.
Julie Burgess
After a long career in the NHS, Julie runs her own business, Wale King Associates, through which she provides executive coaching. Julie has prior experience as a foundation trust chief executive and she comes from a critical care nursing background. She is a champion of the patient safety, quality and governance agendas, as well as promoting clinical leadership. She also has experience of working at government level in England & Scotland. Julie is now focusing on her portfolio career, which includes Non Executive roles, volunteering and executive coaching. She lives locally in Lindfield.
Christine Gibbons
Christine graduated and qualified as a pharmacist and became Chief Pharmacist in London Teaching Hospital. After MBA, she moved into hospital management working as a Director and CEO for over 16 years. In her retirement she has a number of trustee charity positions including Chairman of parkrun global, trustee of MS Society and Deputy Chair of Hospice UK. She leaves her Chairmanship of St Ann’s Hospice Manchester over the summer to devote her time to her trusteeship here. She relocated to Hove with her husband nine months ago and has many friends living near to the hospice. She has already run Brighton marathon for the hospice and looking forward to running many more events for us.
St Peter & St James’ Patrons
Honorary President - Dame Vera Lynn, DBE
- The Viscount Brentford
- Sir Edward Cazalet
- Anne Billson
- Katie Derham
- Edward Fox OBE
- Edna Sugarman
- Rt Hon Charles Hendry
