Trustees

Prof Keri Thomas MB.BS MRCGP DRCOG MSC (Pall Med)

Keri Thomas has been National Clinical Lead within the Department of Health's End of Life Care Programme for over 5 years, and Director of the GSF Programme within the NHS for the past 8 years. During this time she has received several awards.

She has many years experience within the NHS, and has successively built a national programme from scratch. The majority of funding attributable to the GSF Programme has to come from earned income both from the NHS and other purchasers, notably Care Homes from across all 3 sectors.

Professor Thomas is author of 'Caring for the Dying at Home' and has written and lectured extensively in the UK and abroad on community palliative care and end of life care. She became Clinical Champion in End of Life Care for the Royal College of General Practitioners in 2007, and has also been awarded the post Professor of End of Life Care at the University of Birmingham.

Professor Thomas now serves Omega as Executive Chair in a voluntary capacity.

She was interviewed for The Guardian newspaper earlier this year:

You can view the article on The Guardian website here.

Rev. Mark Thomas

Mark Thomas has been priest in charge of St Chad's and St Alkmund's churches since September 2001, and Vicar of the new united benefice of the two churches since 2008. He also conducts ministry reviews for the Lichfield Diocese, and has been a member of General Synod since 2007. He is a Patron of the Shrewsbury Summer Season Arts Festival, and of Shrewsbury's Darwin Festival, and started the St Chad's Darwin lecture in 2002. He is chaplain to Shrewsbury and Atcham Borough Council, St Chad's being the town's civic church. He is married to Prof Keri Thomas, and they have five children, the eldest being 23 and the youngest twin girls of 12. Previously Mark was Team Rector and Rural Dean in the Wakefield Diocese, and an Honorary Canon of Wakefield Cathedral.

Dr. Teresa Griffin

Prof. Collette Clifford

Collette Clifford is Professor of Nursing in the College of Medical and Dental Sciences at the University of Birmingham. She has been in the post for circa 12 years and prior to this has worked in a range of academic and clinical roles in nursing.

Helen Meehan RN, RM, Bsc (Hons) Community Health Nursing

Helen is the Lead Nurse Palliative Care and End of Life Care Clinical Champion for Solihull NHS Care Trust.

The roles include clinical lead for the community Macmillan Specialist Palliative Care Team, leading on palliative care strategy and palliative care service improvement for Care Trust Community Services, clinical advisor to commissioning. 

Peter Hares ACMA

Qualified ACMA 1982

After leaving school Peter first started his career in banking before quickly realising that it wasn’t what he would do for life. Having then started accountancy training, always in industry rather than the profession, he moved companies several times for progression and had a fairly normal career path which really started with Laura Ashley.

Peter later became involved in mainly interim roles and has been employed either in a traditional Finance Director role or for specific projects such as systems implementations or company acquisitions and disposals. He has had many years experience working with major companies.

Peter is now the Finance Director of a Shipping Company headquartered in London with offices throughout the Far East, Monaco and Copenhagen.

Henry Heath MBE

Henry Heath is retired from work and he is committed to serving St Chad’s church where he is now involved in organising the stewarding of the church during the summer months and playing an active part in the Stewardship Team. 

During his business life he was actively engaged in writing and published two major books on Flavour Technology and Chemistry and a third in collaboration with a professor from Minnesota University. In addition he was busily engaged in lecturing, running symposia and writing technical articles in all the major counties where the company had factories or sourced raw materials.  Inevitably, he was involved in the then new technical food associations and played a significant role as a Fellow in their foundation and growth.