Andy was appointed as the Chief Operating Officer – neighbourhoods, mental health & families, Somerset NHS Foundation Trust and Yeovil District Hospital, NHS Foundation Trust in January 2022. Andy joined the NHS in Somerset in 2014 when he joined Somerset Partnership NHS Foundation Trust as chief operating officer. Having originally qualified as an occupational therapist, he worked in a number of clinical roles within mental health across the South West before moving into leadership roles during the 1990s. Andy played a role in the establishment of a new specialist NHS mental health trust serving the Avon and Wiltshire areas and became the general manager of mental health services for a seven year period up to 2006. Following this Andy gained a broad range of experience in London and the South West in senior commissioning and provider roles in the NHS, and also in social care, with most of his work being focused on service modernisation. Andy maintains a strong interest in care pathway redesign and service transformation and in recent years has taken on a number of system leadership roles within Somerset, centred on improving patient flow and working with partners in the development successful community alternatives to hospital admission. Having worked closely with colleagues at Yeovil Hospital over a number of years, initially on the Somerset delayed transfers of care programme and more recently in system leadership roles for the vaccination programme and community oximetry.
