Our Chair, Jacquie Wood
Jacquie is a registered nurse and nurse teacher and also a qualified Human Resources practitioner. She has worked extensively with several different NHS and care organisations for over 30 years at the local and regional levels. Jacquie’s primary expertise lies in developing organisations and their people to meet new challenges and make the changes needed to develop services.
Jacquie has experience working with local hospitals, community organisations, GP practices, health care commissioners and voluntary organisations with a view to improving patient services and supporting staff through change. Jacquie is now semi-retired but still works part-time with some local organisations on request.
Jacquie is passionate about the NHS, the quality of its services and good patient care for all age groups in all care settings. She is very much looking forward to working as part of the Healthwatch Oldham Board to help meet their key role in giving a voice to local people on care services.
Our Board
Issie Howard
Issie is a committed housing professional, having worked in the social housing sector for the last 16 years, and volunteered as a member of the Chartered Institute of Housing north west regional group since 2015.
She currently works as a Partnerships Manager for Housing 21, a leading, not for profit provider of Extra Care and Retirement Living for older people of modest means and is based in Oldham. She works in the PFI team, working alongside a range of partners including Oldham Council, making sure that residents have opportunities to engage and be involved in decision making and develop activities within the schemes and communities that Housing 21 manage.
Issie is interested in the link between health, housing and social care, and is passionate about these three areas not working in silos, but in harmony together. She has worked in Oldham for the last seven years and is very well connected to a network of different organisations, community groups and people. She believes having local insight is one of her strengths as a Healthwatch Oldham board member.
She holds an undergraduate degree from The University of Manchester and a masters degree in Housing Practice from the University of Salford.
Julie Wooton
Julie began her career over 35 years ago as an ophthalmic and paediatric nurse, she made the successful transition from executive nurse into corporate management, which spanned across all directorates at board and director positions in the UK, UAE and Asia. Within this time she was involved in a number of international symposiums regarding the rights of children.
Over the past 10 years her experiences have largely included redesigning services to increase access for patients, and what is it that we need to do differently to improve patient services. She is a Practice Partner In Oldham and with her team strives to continually improve the quality of services, how our patients access them and how we communicate better with our patients.
Julie’s heart lies in supporting the community and giving a voice to local people. Being a board member is quite a privilege and she is looking forward to utilise her experiences to support colleagues and the Oldham community to make a difference.
Shah Rehman
Shah is the Senior Careers Manager for NHS England North West. Founder and executive coach at excelcareer, editor of the Careers Newsletter and author of the Holistic Careers Model. He is the Chairperson of both the Professional Careers Support Network and the Medical Schools Professional Careers Network. He is also a board member of the Medical and Dental Recruitment and Selection Board (MDRS).
Shah is a resident of Oldham and chairs the Sandringham Park Residents Association in Coldhurst. He has been involved in many community projects focused on helping people with education, rehabilitation and youth development.
Shah is a qualified executive Coach, Careers counsellor and Trainer with clients at all levels and in a variety of sectors. He thrives at helping individuals to flourish and equipping professionals to make informed and considered life/career choices. Shah is pragmatic and down to earth, with a passion for supporting people to make positive change, grow in their careers, develop emotional agility and maximise potential. He is an NLP Master, MBTI and ILM-qualified coach.
Michelle Anderson
Michelle is the Chief Executive for Oldham Personal Advocacy Limited (OPAL).
OPAL is a registered charity that provides independent advocacy support and day programmes for adults with learning disabilities and autistic people. Michelle joined OPAL in 2014; she greatly understands the service user group and the barriers they face in all aspects of their lives. Over the years, Michelle has built positive working relationships with Oldham Council and local community groups. Being a Healthwatch board member will enable her to represent people with learning disabilities and autistic people and to share best practices.
Michelle holds a Masters in Social Work from Manchester Metropolitan University and a Masters in Business Administration from the University of Salford. She is also a stage 1 and 2 Practice Educator, enabling her to assess the practice of social work students on placement at OPAL.
Shelley Caulfield
Shelley Caulfield is a Wellness Service Manager for Bury Council and has been a Oldham resident all of her life. Shelley had been a project manager in the Outdoor Advertising Sector for many years when she decided to completely retrain and focus her attention on health improvement just over 10 years ago. Since then, Shelley has focused on supporting individuals to make healthier life choices for improved life quality. This support is across a whole spectrum including weight management, smoking cessation, and long-term condition management. Shelley manages a team of staff dedicated to improving lives and reducing health inequalities.
Most recently Shelley has been working hard to improve women’s health and is a lead on the women’s health hub steering group. She has been successful in ensuring women are getting the right support through the menopause. Health should not be a postcode lottery and reducing the barriers to accessing the right support and the right time is the golden thread through all the work that Shelley does.
Shelley has a degree in Exercise Science, she is a personal trainer, an exercise referral officer, qualified to deliver cardiac and pulmonary rehab and is a qualified menopause support coach.
Val Bayliss-Brideaux
Val currently works as the Network and Communication worker for Manchester Homelessness Partnership.
Val took early retirement from the NHS in Manchester in 2023 after 25 years of working in patient and public involvement, commissioning, community engagement, VCSE grant management, complaints and feedback and managing volunteers.
Val has been a resident in Oldham for over 30 years and lives with long-term health conditions. She is keen to use her transferable skills and knowledge as a board member for Healthwatch Oldham to challenge health inequalities and improve information for self-care.
She is a trustee for North Manchester FM and a trustee and volunteer Chief Accountable Officer for Greater Manchester Long Covid Support. Greater Manchester Long Covid Support was set up originally as a peer support group in 2020 during the Covid pandemic, and working with members, the group became a registered charity in 2024.
