The Doctors in Distress Trustees
Chair
Dame Clare Gerada
FRCGP FRCPSYCH
Dame Clare Gerada is a GP who works in London. She established the Practitioner Health Programme to support doctors and dentists with mental health and associated issues.
She is the President Elect of the Royal College of General Practioners and is the past Chair of the Royal College of General Practitioners, only the second woman to hold this position in 50 years. She is now a member of the BMA Council and has recently been appointed co-chair, with Sir Chris Ham, of the NHS assembly.
Founder
Amandip Sidhu
Amandip started Doctors in Distress after his brother Jagdip, a consultant cardiologist, sadly took his own life.
The tragic event highlighted the issues the medical profession has around mental health and why it needs to change. Whilst running his own business at the same time, Amandip has built the charity from nothing to where we are today.
Anna Soubry
In her mid thirties Anna was a barrister based in Nottingham for 16 years with a largely defence practise.
In 2010 Anna was elected as a Member of Parliament for Broxtowe, a post she held for 10 years. During this time she held the position of the first woman MP Defence Minister, Business Minister and Minister for Public Health.
Anna left the Conservative Party in 2019 and went on to lead Change UK which disbanded in early 2020.
Anna has two daughters from her first marriage and lives in north Leicestershire with her partner Neil.
Professor Subodh Dave
Subodh is a Consultant Psychiatrist and Deputy Director of Undergraduate Medical Education, Derbyshire Healthcare Foundation Trust. He is the Dean of Royal College of Psychiatrists.
He is passionate about co-production and patient involvement in Quality Improvement as well as in teaching where he has been the architect for the award-winning programme of volunteer-patient teachers in Derby and developed mentoring programmes for International Medical Graduates (IMGs).
A keen runner, he has run several marathons to raise money for mental health charities. He ran the Berlin marathon in under 3 hours and has recently cycled across the length of UK in 10 days raising funds for Doctors in Distress and raising awareness about mental illness and suicides in medics.
Dr Ananta Dave
Dr Ananta Dave is Medical Director and Consultant Child & Adolescent Psychiatrist at Lincolnshire Partnership NHS Foundation Trust (LPFT). She is a Fellow of the Royal College of Psychiatrists (RCPsych). She has also been elected as a member of the UK Parliament Health & Social Care Committee’s expert panel.
She was awarded a Churchill Fellowship in 2019 to travel to the United States and study the topic of preventing doctor suicides. The importance of looking after staff wellbeing and providing non-stigmatising sensitive easily accessible mental healthcare for doctors and health professionals is a cause close to Dr Dave’s heart, after seeing the needless suffering and loss of life due to mental illness and losing friends and colleagues to suicide.
She is passionate about helping develop a leadership culture which promotes equality, inclusivity and wellbeing of the workforce. Dr Dave has had a life-long interest in teaching and training and is involved in this at undergraduate (Lincoln Medical School) and postgraduate level.
Richard Spooner
From 2000 to 2016 he was chairman of Emmaus Colchester, a charity and social enterprise which provides a home and meaningful work for up to 33 formerly homeless people.
During a 50 year career as an entrepreneur and business executive he worked in manufacturing companies in UK and Australia; was founder and CEO of Team User Systems, a developer of professional software packages; was co-founder and CEO of Tollgate Clinic, a provider of NHS and private community surgical services and served as chairman of Euractiv.com plc, a Brussels based publisher of EU policy news.
Gavin McColl
Gavin is a Clinical Director of South Southwark Primary Care Network. He was involved in planning the community response to the COVID-19 pandemic in South East London and became the Clinical Director of the COVID-19 community clinic in Southwark where he developed an innovative system for patients to be assessed safely.
He is the Clinical Lead for New Cross Health Centre and Sternhall Lane Surgery and is passionate about transforming the patient journey through health services in order to better address the complexity now seen in modern primary care.
Outside work Gavin enjoys outdoors pursuits and sports including cycling, hill climbing, kayaking, tennis and football. He plays acoustic guitar to help him relax.
Nishma Shah
Nishma is a General Practitioner with 11 years of experience in Primary Care. She is the Medical Director and Responsible Officer for a small designated body, The Hurley Group. Her lead areas include clinical governance and performance management of clinical staff employed by the Hurley Group.
In addition to this, Nishma is also a trained appraiser for GPs in North Central London.
Hurley group have experience of “turnaround” where GP practices are closed down with short notice and Hurley Group is often asked to parachute in to provide primary care services. This often involves supporting role for staff, clinical and non-clinical who have been working at the practice.
Nishma is a keen runner, cyclist and outdoor enthusiast, having completed Paris, Snowdonia and Everest Marathons in the past and London to Paris cycle ride for charity.
Darren Cockburn
Darren is also an experienced Non-Executive Director having served on the boards of several technology companies as well as on the oversight committee of an investment fund.
Prior to the BBC, Darren worked as Controller of Corporate Development at Channel 4, where he was in charge of corporate venturing, and at the Walt Disney Internet Group as Director of Strategy and Business Development, Europe.
Fiorella Massey
Fiorella was Founding Chair of the Friends at the Mental Health Foundation and is a passionate advocate of prevention strategies. She spearheaded a targeted teenage mental health campaign which is now a flagship programme for the charity. This nationwide peer to peer programme is reaching over 20 000 children promoting resilience and mental health literacy. She also helped develop a pilot project, UOK (University of kindness) for students making their transition to University.
She was made MBE in the New Years Honours list (2021) for her work in Education and teenage mental health. She mentors young clinicians and entrepreneurs focused on new approaches to mental health issues.
A mother of three, she is a multilingual graduate, cold water swimmer and sport enthusiast and an artist potter/ sculptor in her spare time.