Who's who at the MHF?

Staff

Caroline Dyer - Finance Officer

Caroline was appointed in October 2001. She has worked for various charities and voluntary organisations, including Women's Health. She is a member of the Association of Accounting Technicians, currently also works as Finance Manager for a housing association and is a voluntary treasurer of a Residents’ Association.

Errol Franklin - Project Officer (Community Development)​​

Errol joined the Men's Health Forum in December 2012. His responsibilities include developing working relationships and firm partnerships with key organisations, for the collective purpose of improving the health and wellbeing of the male population in Lambeth and Southwark. Errol also seeks to provide opportunities for males in Lambeth and Southwark to get involved and be central in shaping areas of health care services, specific to their needs.

Errol has previously worked for the NHS  over a number of years in roles that required him to lead on equal access, community/patient engagement, health and homelessness and service development for targeted groups.

Rachel Mustafa - Business and Service Development Support Officer​​

Rachel joined the Forum in 2012. She manages the MHF’s events and the income generation, and is responsible for customer relations, invoicing, business support, publications support and general administration. To raise some money for the Men’s Health Forum, she took part in a sky dive.

Previously, Rachel worked as a facility manager for several charities, carrying out administrative tasks and supervising staff. She also was a controller and business developer for a private medical transportation company and volunteered at the HMP Pentonville Prison.    

Colin Penning - External Affairs Manager​

Colin is responsible for the organisation's public relations. This includes co-ordinating campaigns and working with parliamentarians, other organisations and the press.

He organises many of the Forum's events and works with the websites editor on the organisation's websites and social media, including @menshealthforum. With MPs and peers he co-ordinates the All Party Parliamentary Group on Men's Health. Before joining the Forum he worked for the Doctor Patient Partnership on membership and parliamentary work.

Martin Tod - Chief Executive​

Martin joined the Men's Health Forum in January 2013. He started his career working in marketing in the private sector - working for P&G as a Marketing Director and Vodafone as Head of UK Brand and Marketing Communications.

More recently he moved to the third sector, working in a range of roles at Shelter - including Deputy Director of Communications, Policy & Campaigns, Head of Strategy and Head of Corporate Fundraising.

David Wilkins - Policy Officer

David has worked for the Men’s Health Forum since 2002. He has written and edited policy papers, including the Gender and Access to Health Services Study for the Department of Health and, with Erick Savoye, Men’s health around the world: a review of policy and progress across 11 countries. Earlier this year the MHF and Relate jointly published David's report on men’s use of relationship support services, Try to see it my way.

David has managed a number of projects aimed at improving men’s health, both for the Men’s Health Forum and in the NHS. Most recently he has led a research project to increase men’s participation in the NHS Bowel Cancer Screening Programme and he represents the 'men’s health interest' on a number of national and regional policy development bodies. Prior to working for the MHF, David worked for 12 years in public health departments in the NHS and as a community worker and a youth worker.

Damian Shannon - Business and Service Development Project Officer

Damian joined the Men’s Health Forum in January 2013. He will be working alongside Errol on the development of the Men’s Health Improvement Programme for Lambeth and Southwark. His responsibilities include creating innovative and targeted interventions to achieve the primary aim of improving men's health outcomes and reducing the health inequalities of men in Lambeth and Southwark. 

Previously, Damian worked for NHS Ayrshire and Arran as Health Promotion Officer, where he dealt with health inequalities on both a strategic and community level. He was also responsible for the development and monitoring of the health improvement programme in HMP Kilmarnock in Scotland.

Other contacts

Jim Pollard - Editorial and Creative Consultant/Editor of the Forum's websites

Jim Pollard is a freelance editor, writer and journalist with a particular interest in men's health and diversity issues. His work has appeared in a wide range of media including newspapers (both tabloids and broadsheets), magazines and online. He is author of two acclaimed books on men's health The User's Guide to the Male Body and All Right Mate, an easy intro to men's health as well as a number of other books on health. He has also published a novel Rotten In Denmark. His books have been shortlisted for a number of prizes. He edits this site and the Forum's sister website malehealth.co.uk. 

Trustees

Lily Laila Abedipour

Lily became a trustee in 2008.

Sandra Gidley

Sandra became a trustee in 2010.

David Hudson

David retired from business at the end of 2005 having spent his entire career in the Marketing and Communications areas. The first part of his career followed a typical brand management path, working on major advertised brands including Homepride Flour and Nescafe. After having spent four years in a challenging business and social environment in Japan, he returned to the UK to become the Communications and Corporate Affairs Director for Nestle UK, broadening his role from Marketing and Advertising issues to all facets of external and internal communications, including reputation management; corporate social responsibility and Public Relations.

Since retiring, he has continued to use his communications experience to the benefit of two big charities: the National Grocers Benevolent Fund and the Whitgift Foundation. He hopes to now also help the MHF with any of their communication challenges. 

Frank Keating

Dr Frank Keating is a Senior Lecturer in Health and Social Care in the Department of Health and Social Care at Royal Holloway University of London. Frank is Programme Director for the MSc in Social Work and leads in teaching on Mental Health and Research Methods for social work. His research interests are ethnicity, ‘race’, gender and mental health. Frank advocates for race equality in mental health in the United Kingdom through his teaching, research, writing and public speaking. Frank became a trustee in 2008.

John Larkin - Treasurer of the Forum

John Larkin joined the Trustee Board in 2004. As the Treasurer of the Men’s Health Forum, he also chairs the Finance Committee of the Trustee Board, and has served in 2010 as an Acting Vice-Chair of the Men’s Health Forum. With his considerable experience of the public and voluntary sectors, gained in the legal profession and as a senior professional executive in the financial services and the construction industry, he currently holds various trusteeships/ directorships with several national and regional health-related or care-based organisations. Apart from experience as a non-executive director in NHS primary care, he is regularly empanelled on statutory mental health reviews/ abjudications in his role as an Associate Hospital Manager with the NHS. He is a Barrister of the Middle Temple, London, and a Master of Arts and Master of Law of Queen’s College, Cambridge.

Gopa Mitra MBE

Gopa Mitra is Director of Health Policy & Public Affairs at PAGB, the trade body representing manufacturers of non-prescription medicines and food supplements in Great Britain. She became an MHF trustee in January 2004.

Gopa is a member of AESGP's Economic Affairs/PR Committee, organising the Association's annual meetings and evaluating the commercial implications of EU directives on the self-care market. She is a member of the World Self-Medication Industry's team at the World Health Assemblies organised annually by the World Health Organisation (WHO). More recently Gopa has been appointed to the Government's NHS Modernisation Action Team dealing with patient empowerment and the Inequalities and Public Health Task Force. She is also a trustee of Developing Patient Partnerships (DPP) and the Long-term Medical Conditions Alliance (LMCA). 

Gillian Nineham

Gillian Nineham became a trustee in January 2004.

Sara Richards

For most of her working life, Sara was a Practice Nurse. She is now also employed as a Practice Nurse Facilitator, looking after 17 practices. Her expertise is in diabetes and asthma and she is very interested in self-care, nutrition and weight management. She has written many articles for the nursing press, is editor of Nutrition for Nurses, a quarterly publication, and has been on the Editorial Board of Practice Nurse Journal since 2000. She served as Chair of the RCN Practice Nurse Association for 3 years.

For a number of years Sara was involved with NICE looking at coronary heart disease, diabetes and heart failure and obesity and is on the NHS Cancer Screening Programme Prostate Cancer Risk Management Scientific Reference Group.

Dr Su Wang

Su became a trustee of the Forum in 2008.

Dr John Chisholm CBE - Chair of Trustees

John Chisholm has been chair of the Men’s Health Forum since April 2013.

He has been involved in representing doctors at national level for more than 30 years. He is a member of the Council of the Royal College of General Practitioners, where he is health and work lead, and a Trustee of the College. He is a Vice-President of the British Medical Association and a member of its Council and Medical Ethics Committee and of various other national bodies including the Self Care Forum and a Director of Concordia Health Ltd. For four years he was an adviser to the NHS Working in Partnership Programme. During his time as Chair of the BMA’s General Practitioners Committee, he led the negotiation of the new GP contract.

John’s interests include men’s health, self care, medical ethics, healthcare reform, and the relationship between health and work. John was formerly a member of the General Medical Council, the Joint Committee on Postgraduate Training for General Practice and the Standing Medical Advisory Committee, and of numerous other professional and Governmental advisory bodies. He has written extensively about the organisation of general practice.