Four key executive posts at Greater Manchester Mental Health NHS Foundation Trust are now being filled on an interim basis, while the Trust recruits a substantially reshaped senior leadership team.
Chris Oliver joined GMMH as Chief Executive in July 2026, following the retirement of Karen Howell. He arrived from Lancashire and South Cumbria NHS Foundation Trust, where he had been Chief Executive since 2022. GMMH highlighted his experience of improving quality and safety and leading that Trust to an overall CQC rating of “Good”.
Since his arrival, there has been a striking turnover at the top of GMMH.
Four executive posts now under interim leadership
GMMH’s current Board of Directors page identifies four important executive roles as being held on an interim basis:
- Carmain Gibson-Holmes has replaced Carol Harris as Interim Chief Operating Officer.
- Joanne Sandham has replaced Paul Howard as Interim Director of Corporate Affairs.
- Deborah Cox has replaced Claus Madsen as Interim Chief People Officer.
- Rebekah Roshan has replaced Salli Midgley as Interim Chief Nurse.
These are not peripheral positions. Together, they cover the day-to-day operation of services, clinical quality and nursing, workforce and organisational culture, governance, risk and corporate accountability.
Carol Harris, Claus Madsen and Salli Midgley had all joined GMMH during 2024, while Paul Howard became Director of Corporate Affairs in January 2025. They were central appointments to the permanent leadership team assembled under Karen Howell.
The Trust’s public Board page confirms their interim replacements but does not explain why the previous postholders ceased to occupy their roles. CHARM does not intend to speculate about individual circumstances. However, changes of this scale and importance require clear public communication.
A wider redesign of the executive team
GMMH is not simply replacing people on a like-for-like basis.
The Trust is recruiting a combined Deputy Chief Executive and Chief Operating Officer. This strengthens the status of the operational role and places its holder immediately alongside the Chief Executive in leading the organisation. The recruitment information emphasises quality, safety, operational performance, financial sustainability and major organisational transformation.
Permanent recruitment has also begun for a new Director of Corporate Affairs and Chief People Officer. The latter role is expected to lead changes in organisational culture, workforce strategy, inclusion and leadership.
Most significantly, GMMH has created a new Board-level position: Chief Performance, Improvement and Transformation Officer. This post will bring performance management, improvement and transformation together within a single executive portfolio reporting directly to the Chief Executive. The stated intention is to create a clearer connection between strategy, delivery and measurable outcomes.
This suggests that Chris Oliver is overseeing not only a change of personnel, but a significant redesign of how the Trust is led and held accountable.
An opportunity—but also a risk
There is a real opportunity for a leadership reset at GMMH.
The Trust continues to face serious challenges involving community mental health services, waiting times, workforce pressures, complaints, learning from deaths, family and carer involvement, and rebuilding public trust following repeated failures.
A stronger focus on delivery, accountability and improvement could be valuable. CHARM has already held constructive meetings with Chris Oliver and welcomes his willingness to listen directly to community organisations and people with lived experience.
At the same time, having four major executive portfolios under interim leadership creates risks. These include loss of organisational memory, uncertainty about decision-making authority and disruption to work already underway. This is particularly important while services are experiencing major changes, including the transfer of Manchester social workers back to the local authority and the proposed transformation of community mental health services.
Leadership change is not, by itself, evidence of improvement. What matters is whether it produces safer services, greater openness and better experiences for service users, families, carers and staff.
What CHARM believes GMMH should now provide
CHARM is calling on GMMH to publish a clear account of:
- The senior leadership changes that have taken place, including the dates on which each permanent postholder left their role.
- The arrangements for maintaining clinical, operational and governance continuity during the interim period.
- The structure and responsibilities of the redesigned executive team.
- How service users, carers, bereaved families, frontline staff, governors and community organisations will be involved in shaping the Trust’s future priorities.
- The outcomes by which the new leadership arrangements will be judged, including patient safety, access to community support, workforce stability, complaint handling and learning from deaths.
The Trust should also explain how much the interim arrangements and executive recruitment processes will cost.
Change must be visible in people’s lives
CHARM welcomes continued dialogue with Chris Oliver and recognises that he has inherited an organisation facing deep and longstanding difficulties.
The appointment of new leaders may provide an opportunity to move away from defensive institutional practices and towards a culture based on human rights, openness, compassion and genuine partnership with communities.
But the success of this leadership reset will not be measured by new job titles or changes to an organisational chart. It will be measured by whether people receive help when they need it, whether families are listened to, whether staff feel safe to speak up and whether GMMH responds honestly when care goes wrong.
Greater Manchester now needs both stable leadership and meaningful change. The public deserves to understand how the new executive team will deliver them.
CHARM is right that leadership change must be judged by greater openness and accountability. Joanne Sandham joining Chris Oliver at GMMH gives me particular reason to question how those commitments will work in practice.
On 30 March 2026, Joanne confirmed that requests for me to stop contacting governors directly came from individual governors, rather than a formal Council decision. Nevertheless, she required all correspondence intended for the Council to pass through the Company Secretary’s office, declining my proposed alternative of communicating through the Lead or Deputy Lead Governor.
She also expressly assured me that the distinction between my personal complaint and wider governance concerns would be preserved in the review and its presentation to governors. My subsequent experience has been that separate matters are brought together in responses declaring issues closed while specific questions remain unanswered.
In a later email, she said governors were satisfied with the review. They would be notified of further correspondence but could individually decide whether to see it. Concerns about executive conduct were met with a reference to “the appropriate Trust Policy”, without identifying the policy or explaining how those concerns would be assessed.
That email also promised a further response concerning my outstanding subject access request within 30 days. It did not arrive.
These are documented experiences that inform my concerns about the leadership culture being brought to GMMH. Declaring a matter closed does not establish that substantive questions have been answered.
Alongside CHARM’s calls for transparency, I would ask for clear arrangements enabling governors to scrutinise concerns, preserving the distinction between personal complaints and governance issues, and explaining how concerns about executive conduct receive independent consideration.
The test of openness is how leaders respond when people challenge them.
A further example concerns the LSCFT communication restrictions issued on 4 September 2026 by Joanne Sandham. I asked for clarification of their scope, including whether they affected communication about my mother’s inpatient care, access to complaints and Freedom to Speak Up, outstanding information-rights matters, and participation in the Annual Members’ Conference.
The Company Secretary Team had invited me to the conference on 5 October. I subsequently attended, although I had received no confirmation from Joanne Sandham in response to my request to clarify whether the restrictions affected my attendance and participation. I was therefore not prevented from attending; my concern is the uncertainty left by the unanswered request.
My correspondence also sought specific answers about the promised March 2025 review of my PPI exclusion and the apparent difference between the Trust’s July 2024 position on my Lancaster University/LUPIN involvement and its September 2026 response. These are questions about decisions, evidence and accountability.
For me, this reinforces CHARM’s call for openness: communication restrictions should have clear boundaries, and substantive governance questions should receive identifiable answers.