Shauna in the fast lane

Shauna Dixon, NHS director of clinical services on her Harley Davidson 1200 Sportster.

Martyn talks to Shauna Dixon, chief executive of NHS Oldham

HAVING spent almost two hours in the company of Shauna Dixon I left exhausted, for undoubtedly I had been in the company of a high-energy, driven woman who is passionate about her career.

In fact, this formidable female is passionate about just about everything in which she is involved. And that’s an awful lot, trust me.

I left her office at Ellen House in Westwood, the corporate headquarters of NHS Oldham, feeling we had barely scratched the surface, yet we had covered a myriad of subjects, from her childhood in a Scottish commune in Corporation Road, Audenshaw, to her round-Europe treks in black leathers aboard her limited-edition Harley Davidson motor-cycle.

And along the way we touched on her career in the health service, her time with the Territorial Army and, almost incidentally, raising two children, one of whom (her daughter, since you ask) pilots those gigantic Hercules transport aeroplanes for the RAF.

To complete the family formalities, her son is in the higher echelons of NHS management and her patient saint of a husband, Bryan, is senior engineer at North Manchester General Hospital.

Did I mention her outside interests, such as being chair of the new Waterhead Academy, her duties as a governor at The Oldham College, and membership of the Reserves and Former Cadets’ Association?

Throw in her committee role with Greater Manchester SaBRE — an acronym for Supporting Britain’s Reservists and Employers, a Ministry of Defence campaign to encourage employers to take on members of the reserve forces — and her time as a trustee of Broughton House, the Salford-based home for ex-service personnel and you begin to get the picture.

Whoops, almost forgot... Shauna is also a Deputy Lord Lieutenant of Greater Manchester and recently went to Buckingham Palace for an MBE investiture with The Queen. This was in recognition of 40 years’ dedication to healthcare.

Oh, I really should mention her day job as chief executive of NHS Oldham, overseeing an annual budget of £420 million and managing 250 staff.

Put simply, and I will get in bother for this, NHS Oldham is the interface between GPs and hospitals and contracts with four hospitals — the Royal Oldham, Fairfield, Rochdale and North Manchester, plus the Christie in Manchester — to deliver procedures from surgery to pharmacy, dentistry to optical requirements prescribed by doctors.

NHS Oldham makes decisions about where to allocate money, staff and resources to meet the health needs across the borough, commissioning services from family doctors, community nurses and therapists, dentists, pharmacists, hospitals, mental health organisations and a range of healthcare providers.

Community health services staff will become part of Pennine Care NHS Foundation Trust from April this year, a change at the heart of the Coalition Government’s reforms for service delivery. But that’s a debate for another day . . .

Shauna arrived in Oldham in 2003 from Liverpool and, in December last year succeeded Gail Richards, who started an assignment as part of a national scheme called NHS Interim Management and Support.

As ever, Shauna took the step upwards in her considerable stride. As she had told me earlier during our chat: “I was always bossy.” As the eldest of eight children, she had responsibility thrust upon her from an early age and has happy memories of taking charge of her younger siblings when she was barely four.

Her eldest brother, the next of the eight, was killed in a motor accident when he was only two and this tragedy was to shape Shauna’s life. Her mother would not let her, or any of the others out of her sight and Shauna didn’t start school until she was five.

“Being born in May meant mum could keep me at home an extra year,” she recalled, adding: “When I came to leave school, I had little idea of what I wanted to do. I was heading into the foundry, where most of the Scottish commune of Little Falkirk were employed. But I decided I wasn’t going to sew knickers so I had a chat with the head girl. She was going to be a cadet nurse and I thought, ‘That’s the job for me, too’.”

Shauna was mortified when her mother accompanied her to the interview with the matron at Ashton General Hospital, but as the hospital would take on only “ladies of good character” the fact that mum was there was a considerable plus.

And so began a hectic career in the health service, through nursing, further education on day release to become a state registered nurse, midwifery parts one and two either side of becoming a mother, an intensive neonatal course through to theatre staff.

Her first forays into management administration came on the contracts side of the NHS and she credits her time with the Territorial Army — Shauna rose through the ranks to become a lieutenant colonel and a matron of a field hospital — as integral to her managerial development.

Her one regret after 15 years with the TA, based at Stretford, was not seeing active service. She left in 2003 and her unit was deployed to Afghanistan 12 months later, a source of huge frustration, I fancy. Her first invitation to consider the TA came 15 years before she actually signed up. Her newly-wed husband, Bryan, called to collect her at the headquarters on a raw, windy night and when he knocked on the door and inquired as to his new bride was told to wait, and the door was promptly shut in his face!

So, too, was Shauna’s TA career, but she never forgot the experience, and, when her career and family commitments allowed, she returned to the service she supports to this day.

She came to Oldham eight years ago as Director Clinical Services and the borough has been the grateful beneficiary of her talents and energy.

Shauna relaxes by driving around Europe with her husband and like-minded bikers, camping and taking in the sights, but always mindful of her responsibilities to more than 200 staff and thousands of Oldhamers who require her unique talents.