
Sardip Sandhu, Non-Executive Director
Sardip Sandhu has over 20 years of experience and expertise in a variety of commercial, general management, strategy & transformation leadership roles at Walgreens Boots Alliance. She specialises in building strategy, operational change, brands, teams and people, and has worked with teams in UK, USA and Asia. Sardip, who has a Masters degree in Global Public Heath, is a qualified performance coach, is passionate about people, innovation and ethics in organisations.
Sardip is also a independent Governor and board member of DeMontfort University and is a Research Fellow at the University of Nottingham medical school.
Sardip is Chair of the Charitable funds committee, Vice Chair of Finance and performance Committee and a board member of D Hive.

Justin Shannahan, Non-Executive Director
Justin joined the Trust Board in June 2019. He has a broad finance, purchasing and commercial background and worked for over 20 years in a number of roles at Rolls-Royce, most recently as the Director of Finance of the Civil Aerospace division.
Justin holds a BA (Hons) in Accounting and Financial Management and is a qualified accountant.
Justin is the Chair of the Audit Committee and a member of the Finance and Investment Committee and the Charitable Funds Committee.

Professor Jaspal Taggar, Non-Executive Director
Professor Jaspal Taggar is a General Practitioner and Clinical Academic at the University of Nottingham.
As Head of Undergraduate GP Education at Nottingham University, Prof. Taggar is passionate about the training of the future medical workforce and innovation of medical education.
He has a portfolio of clinical and medical education research whilst supporting research delivery across the East Midlands in his capacity as Co-Lead for the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) Clinical Research Network.
Born and brought up locally in Derby, Prof. Taggar wants to use his expertise to support and develop high-quality patient care and services, enabling the health and wealth of the local community to thrive.

Professor Chris Harrison, Senior Independent Director
Chris has held senior NHS board level positions for the past 30 years. Having qualified in Medicine from Manchester he spent the following 10 years in a variety of hospital medicine, primary care and public health roles before becoming a District Director of Public Health in Lancashire in 1992. After overseeing the development of the new Rosemere Cancer Centre in Preston he moved to the Northwest Regional Office as Cancer Services Director in 1999. He subsequently held the posts of Medical Director for Greater Manchester SHA, The Christie NHS Foundation Trust and Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust as well as being National Clinical Director for Cancer at NHSE from 2016-2019.
Following retirement in 2020 he has been providing strategy and corporate governance advice and support as Executive Director at The Christie Cancer Centre in Manchester where he also provides board leadership for the international programme, health inequalities and environmental issues. He continues to hold this role as well as being an Honorary Professor in the Department of Cancer Sciences at The University of Manchester.
Chris chairs the Quality Assurance Committee and is member of the Audit Committee. He is also the Board’s nominated Non-Executive Maternity Safety Champion and Non-Executive with oversight of Medical Disciplinary matters.

Nicky Clarke, Non-Executive Director
Nicky has over 38 years of HR and people experience in large organisations, 11 of those years within the NHS. Nicky is currently Chief of People for the Northern Care Alliance NHS Foundation Trust, which is a post she has held since 2019, and has previously worked as Director of HR at Nottingham University Hospitals and Director of Workforce and Organisational Development at Chesterfield Royal Hospital.
She also has extensive experience in the private sector, spending a large part of her career in HR at Boots UK, where she worked for 20 years in a variety of roles.
Nicky has a generalist HR background and has worked on several change programmes, working closely with executive teams to support them on the overall shape and design of the organisation, the organisational culture and employee engagement.

Max Jones, Non-Executive Director
Max has spent the last 20 years operating at a senior level in digital healthcare roles – in both consulting and industry and in the NHS. He’s been a a Chief Information Officer (CIO) on four occasions and has worked across various care settings.
Max started his career in industry, including working for McKesson HBOC as CIO, before spending 12 years (2003 – 2015) working in senior IT roles for NHS Connecting for Health and the Health and Social Care Information Centre.
From 2015 to 2020, Max worked for GE Partners, providing healthcare solutions to healthcare and subsequently for Agilisys from 2020 to 2025, during which he was Executive Chief Digital Information Officer (CDIO) and Director of Innovation, Research and Improvement for Humber and North Yorkshire Integrated Care Board (ICB). In September 2025, Max took up a new role as the Chief Artificial Intelligence (AI) Officer for a public sector consultancy (RPNA) building on his expertise in digital transformation in healthcare and in particular the adoption of AI to benefit workforce and patient outcomes – something he’s passionate about.

Simon Pearce, Non-Executive Director
Simon was born in Staffordshire and is an engineering graduate. He qualified as a chartered accountant and spent most of his career working in London and the south-east, initially in auditing and then in mergers, acquisitions and flotations. He then spent over 20 years working in a commercial environment, for a Financial Times Stock Exchange (FTSE) 100, FTSE 250 and private companies, predominantly in company secretary or senior financial management roles. He experienced the financial crash of 2008 as Chief Financial Officer (CFO) of an investment bank before joining the Financial Conduct Authority (then Financial Services Authority) in 2012 as the organisation’s first Company Secretary and, later, Director of Corporate Governance.
He retired in 2022 and returned home to East Staffordshire and was appointed as Non-Executive Director and Chair of Audit and Risk Committee at Midlands Partnership University NHS Foundation Trust, a large mental health and community care trust covering Staffordshire and Shropshire and providing specialist services, including forensic services, further afield.
Simon’s motivation for joining UHDB was that Queen’s Hospital Burton is his local hospital – a hospital that has served his family well for many years.