We are UHB: Liam Nevin, Trust Secretary

University Hospitals Birmingham NHS Foundation Trust runs Good Hope, Heartlands, Queen Elizabeth and Solihull hospitals, the Birmingham Chest Clinic, and Solihull community services.

I joined UHB in 2024 as the Trust Secretary. My job is to coordinate the Board of Directors and the governance of the organisation, which involves all of the key decisions made by the Executive Team, Board committees and the Board itself.

Aligned to that is also the role of our Council of Governors and the various committees that sit underneath that. Part of my role is to channel that information and determine what needs to be decided at what level. It is also about ensuring we have the appropriate structures beneath our Board and governor committees that properly refer matters upwards for assurance.

I am also the Senior Information Risk Officer of the organisation, meaning I run the information governance function, which covers data protection and data security, as well as corporate risk, which is responsible for managing and identifying key strategic risks aligned to the delivery of our Trust strategy.

My background is as a qualified solicitor, although I do not work at UHB in that capacity. I started off my career as a housing manager, running three area housing offices. I realised that the only thing I particularly enjoyed during the professional qualification for that was the housing law component. It made me realise that I wanted to be a lawyer rather than a housing manager. So, after seven years of part time study I requalified as a lawyer and worked through the ranks in transactional areas of law, such as employment, corporate procurement contracts and company law. When you put all of that together, they point towards the things you deal with in corporate governance, basically. This naturally led me to broader managerial roles, first in local government, and then further and higher education and the NHS. I am very strongly public service orientated, so it made sense for me to develop my career across these pathways.

Having been a leader for 20 years, I would hope others would say my values are centered around a really strong belief that you don’t necessarily need to be someone who can stand on a platform and give a fantastic rousing speech to be a good leader. You lead every day by example, by showing integrity and humility, by being supportive and willing to give back what you have learned to others, standing behind your teams and supporting your staff to be the best that they can be. I’ve always tried to do those things – I won’t have always succeeded – but I hope that’s how others would describe my leadership style.

Whatever I have managed to achieve in my career is down to the kindness others showed me in the early days and the support they provided by freely giving their time to develop me or provide mentorship advice. I think the one thing that is beholden on all of us as leaders is to pay that back. As you develop, gain experience and knowledge, be willing to do the same thing for other more junior or aspiring leaders.