Leadership and Management Committee (LMC)

I would like to take this opportunity to introduce myself as the Chair of the Leadership and Management Committee and Associate Registrar for Leadership and Management.

About me

I am Consultant Psychiatrist and Deputy Medical Director at Sheffield Health and Social Care NHS Foundation Trust, undertaking my clinical work in a Single Point of Access Team. I am also Psychiatry Lead at Sheffield Medical School.

I trained at Guy’s Hospital Medical School and following a period in general medicine and neurology, switched to train as a psychiatrist in the Maudsley and Bethlem Training Scheme. During this time I undertook a period of full time research at the Institute of Neurology, and left the scheme during higher training to move to Germany where I worked in a non-training role for several years.

I returned to higher training part-time in Sheffield and became a part-time consultant in 2005. I became Undergraduate Lead in Psychiatry in 2014 and undertook a Masters in Quality Improvement and Leadership with the Health Foundation Generation Q Programme in 2015. I returned to full-time work in 2016 to take up the role of Deputy Medical Director.

I have led on a number of education and workforce developments locally and nationally, including Physician Associates, Advanced Practice and Peer Worker roles and sit on the South Yorkshire and Bassetlaw Faculty for Advanced Practice. I am involved in supporting Quality Improvement, Service User Engagement and Experience and Leadership initiatives for trainees, SAS doctors and consultants.

In my teaching role I have interests including lived experience educators, integrating mental health into the medical curriculum, reflective practice, Balint groups, social accountability, medical humanities and recruitment initiatives in psychiatry at a local and national level.

Dr Rais Irfan Ahmed graduated from Nishtar Medical College in 1993 and moved to the UK in 2003. He became a member of the RCPsych in 2009 and became a Community consultant in Derby in 2012. He joined the RCPsych Trent Division as an elected rep and has been the Divisional Rep for the Leadership and Management Committee since 2017. He is currently elected Vice Chair of the RCPsych Trent Division.

Dr Ahmed is actively engaged in teaching and is an educational supervisor for non-medical prescribers. He also supports SAS doctors with their CESR applications. He is a CASC examiner in a lead examiner role. He has significant leadership and management roles as a Clinical Director of his Trust, Chair of the Medical Advisory Committee, medical lead on the EPR transformation and Chair of the Clinical Design Authority.

He has been an active member of the R&D department, taking part in MHRA approved national and international research trials as Principal Investigator. He has been active with media and public engagement. He was awarded RCPsych Fellowship in 2020 and was elected General Secretary of the BPPA the same year. He is passionate about empowering patients and carers and has been actively involved in various initiatives with the aim of improving mental health care through implementation of Integrated Care Systems.

Dr Suhana Ahmed is a Consultant Psychiatrist – dual-trained (Old Age and General Adult). She is currently Clinical Director of Older Persons services at West London NHS Trust. She has been Director of Medical Education at South West London and St George’s Mental Health Trust having completed her training there and working as an Old Age and Adult Consultant Psychiatrist.

Dr Ahmed is heavily involved with the Royal College of Psychiatrists and is currently Chair of the London Division, Deputy Chair of the Leadership and Management Committee and a member of the executive committee of the Old Age Faculty. She was also co-host of Mind Masters at International Congress in 2022.

She is interested in training, flexible working and supporting leadership and career progression in working parents. She has been a fellow with the award-winning organisation Leaders Plus, has contributed to their podcast series and now runs a mental health workshop for their programme. She is passionate about the impact of and stigma surrounding postnatal depression having talked at RCPsych international Congress in 2021 and had an article published about her experiences in The Independent.

Dr Nick Broughton is a psychiatrist by background and worked as a Consultant in Forensic Psychiatry from 2000. During the course of his career he has worked in a wide variety of secure settings including a specialist remand service, an enhanced medium secure service for women, a remand prison and a young offenders’ institution. He joined Oxford Health NHS Foundation Trust as Chief Executive in June 2020.  Prior to joining the Trust, he was the Chief Executive of Southern Health NHS Foundation Trust, Somerset Partnership NHS Foundation Trust, and was Medical Director of a large specialist mental health Trust in London for almost six years.

In addition he has held a number of regional and national leadership roles and is a trustee of the Charlie Waller Memorial Trust, a national mental health charity focused on improving the mental health of young people. He has a passionate interest in leadership development and believes that the only way we can ensure a sustainable and high quality health service is by equipping those who lead it with the skills and expertise they require.

Dr Sarah Markham is the patient representative on the Leadership and Management Committee.  She is a Visiting Researcher in the Department of Biostatistics and Health Informatics, Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience, King's College London. She has worked with the College Centre for Quality Improvement  at RCPsych as a Patient Reviewer since 2012 and more recently with the National Collaborating Centre for Mental Health.

Sarah is currently engaged in Patient Safety Review work in various parts of the UK and has learned from this the very real need for operationally supported agile and adaptive medical leadership throughout mental health and related services. She is keen to support the work of the LMC and the wider RCPsych.

Dr Mahesh Odiyoor is a Consultant Psychiatrist who specialises in the Psychiatry of Intellectual Disabilities at Cheshire and Wirral Partnership NHS Foundation Trust (CWP). He is an elected member of the Executive Committee of the Faculty of Intellectual Disability and was the Mersey Regional Specialty Representative from 2012 – 20. Since 2011 he has had extensive management experience as a Clinical Director at CWP for a range of services. He is currently Strategic Clinical Director for the ID, NDD and ABI care group. In this role he led the setting up of the Centre for Autism, Neurodevelopmental Disorders, and Intellectual Disability in 2019.

He is passionate about developing and delivering excellent person-centred service for service users. He was involved in the redesign of learning disability services within CWP and neighbouring organisations in the Northwest. Following the CWP redesign the Assessment and Treatment services were rated as “Outstanding” by CQC in 2015 and 2020. On a regional footprint he is involved in the transforming care for people with learning disabilities programme and is the Clinical Lead and deputy chair of the Northwest Learning Disability and ASD Operational Delivery Network. This network has led to the development and implementation of innovative practises which are being considered by NHSE/I as potential national models.

He is interested in research and teaching having been awarded an MD from the University of Liverpool in 2014. He has recently taken on the post of Honorary Senior Lecturer/Clinical Programme Leader (MSc Neuropsychiatry) at the University of Chester and is leading the development of the new MSc programme.

Dr Jonathan Richardson has been a Consultant Old Age Psychiatrist at Cumbria, Northumberland, Tyne and Wear NHS Foundation Trust (CNTW)  since 2007 having graduated from Glasgow University, then trained in Australia and the North East of England.

He has held a range of senior leadership roles within CNTW, including Group Medical Director. He has a MSc in Integrated Service Improvement and completed the NHS Leadership Academy Nye Bevan Programme. He was also one of the first North East Leadership Academy Clinical Leadership Fellows

He has had an active involvement in the development of clinical informatics nationally, regionally and locally. He has worked as National Clinical Advisor for Mental Health Informatics with NHS England and was Chair of the RCPsych Informatics Committee from 2010- 2016. He is currently the Chief Clinical Information Officer in CNTW and is in cohort 4 of the NHS Digital Academy. He was an executive member of the RCPsych Old Age Faculty 2018-22 and co-chaired the working group to produce the RCPsych Frailty position Feb 2020.  He was recently appointed as RCPsych Associate Registrar for Payment Systems and Outcomes.

He is an educational and clinical supervisor for foundation and higher trainees and completed a Diploma in Medical Education. He has actively supported research via the DeNDRoN network and delivery of NHS portfolio studies.

Dr Simmi Sachdeva-Mohan has been practicing Psychiatry since 1995 and is a Gold Medalist from Bombay University for her MD (Psychiatry). She has been a Consultant Psychiatrist since 2009 and is a Fellow of the Royal College of Psychiatrists. Dr Sachdeva-Mohan has practiced psychiatry in both Eastern and Western cultures

She has expertise in the assessment, care and treatment of mentally ill offenders, substance misuse and dual diagnosis, personality disorders, adult ADHD, mental health of refugees and asylum seekers and Perinatal Psychiatry. She is a specialist advisor to the CQC and works with the College as a Regional Advisor and a peer reviewer for ECTAS.

Dr Shaji Sukumaran began his Psychiatric career at the South London and Maudsley NHS Trust where he has remained for the last twenty years. He is presently a Consultant Forensic Psychiatrist with a special interest in community rehabilitation.

Whilst at SLAM, he has had the opportunity to be associated in training and work at the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience where he is a researcher. He is also involved in teaching and training at the medical schools at Kings College Hospital and the forensic rotations. He has undertaken positions in the College and has a keen interest in furthering medical leadership.

Hayley Tennant is the Leadership and Management Committee's carer representative, with lived experience of supporting close family with severe mental health disorders and psychosis.

She has over twenty-five years of leadership and management experience operating at PLC, third sector and SME board level. She is a qualified Chartered Fellow with the Institute of Personnel and Development, an executive coach, and Institute of Leadership and Management lead for leadership and management qualifications and, development programmes. She is an interim Chief People Officer – director of people and resources with a strong commercial background.

Dr Subha Thiyagesh is a Medical Director at South West Yorkshire Partnership NHS Foundation Trust and is also a Consultant in Older People’s Services. She was awarded a Doctorate in Medicine and the Nye Bevan NHS Leadership Academy Award in Executive Healthcare Leadership. She was also the winner of the Leader of the Year award in her Trust’s Excellence awards.

She has held a number of posts in Training and Education and has a real passion for providing a high quality learning environment for doctors and currently supports the Trust Medical Leadership Pathway. Dr Thiyagesh joined the Leadership and Management Committee in 2019 and is very excited to be part of it.

Dr Alex Till is a Consultant Forensic Psychiatrist at Greater Manchester Mental Health NHS FT and the Founder and Director of the RCPsych Leadership and Management Fellow Scheme.