Westgate Community Health
A Show Piece — This Role Is Made Up
Board Member, Advisory
Board & Advisory
The Heartbeat
We are clinically excellent and commercially innocent, and one of those is about to matter a great deal.
What Becomes Possible
A board that reads its own numbers before the meeting rather than during it.
The Room You Are Given
A seat, a vote, and the finance and risk committee if you want it. You would be asked to disagree and it would be taken seriously.
Why This Role Exists
Two funding streams end in 2027 and nobody at our table has ever rebuilt a business model.
Before You Answer Anything
The Place, And What A Week Is Like.A 1970s building on Nicholson Street that does far more than it was built for. The meetings are in person and there is always food. Eleven evenings a year, one strategy day, and the committee if you take it. Nothing is ever a surprise.
And honestly
Our last two board recruits came through somebody knowing somebody, and both of them thought like us. That is the fault we are trying to mend.
What They Are Actually Good At
This Is What They Do Well.We keep people out of hospital. Our diabetes programme is copied in four other services and none of us wrote a paper about it.
And honestly
That being good at the work will be enough when the funding changes. It will not be, and the board knows it.
The Deal, Plainly
$42,000
Paid, which most boards of our kind are not. Eleven meetings a year and the papers come a week ahead.
And what is demanding about it
You would be the one saying the unwelcome thing, often, in a room that likes each other very much.
Why You
You have sat where the money ran out and made the call anyway, and you do not need the room to agree with you first.
Her Question, Answered Plainly
How You Will Know It Is Yours.You have been on a board, or you have sat in front of one. You can read a set of accounts and say what is missing.
And honestly
Clinical governance sits with our chief executive and the clinical committee, and it stays there.
What This Gives You
What You Would Walk Out With.Three hundred people still doing this work in 2030, and a board seat where your commercial judgement is the reason you were asked.
Your Reply Goes To A Person
Our chair reads every reply and rings the ones she wants to meet.
The Tango
You See It.
You Move It.
The Room Keeps Up.
You answer to the work. You lead, and the room moves with you.
Is This Your Tango?
Begin Your ReplyYour Reply
Say It In Your Own Words.
They wrote to you first. This goes straight to them, exactly as you write it.