Matthew is an experienced Chief Executive with leadership experience in a range of NHS organisations, health and care systems and at the frontline. In an NHS career spanning almost 40 years; his clinical experience as a cancer and palliative care nurse specialist, and later as an operational manager, have equipped him with a deep understanding of how hospitals work, and how integrated care can benefit patients and the tax payer. He has held leadership roles in academic, specialist and general healthcare organisations, as well as at regional level. He is known for leading challenged acute trusts out of ‘special measures’. In particular, he has a reputation for leading culture change, focusing colleagues at all levels on patient centred care and using an improvement system to eradicate quality defects and waste in care delivery and operational processes. In his first year leading Mid and South Essex NHS Foundation Trust, Matthew has strengthened the governance systems, embedded the vision and values, launched a 10 year strategic review, evolved the multi-site operating model and implemented a financial recovery plan. Urgent and emergency care performance has improved and cultural improvement programmes are underway in vascular and paediatric services. His current focus is on building a high quality leadership team and embedding the leadership and management behaviours framework across the trust to benefit local people.