Debbie Thwaites

Debbie is responsible for non-clinical and at-scale operational services for the south of our area and has organisation-wide lead responsibility for business improvement.

She has over 30 years’ experience in the private sector, including manufacturing, utilities and business support services. She has spent the last three years in the public sector, specialising in strategy and implementing major change initiatives. She has an established track record of leading and motivating teams to deliver unrivalled standards of service.

In an earlier role as finance director, Debbie helped to set the strategy for the merger of Central Midlands CSU and Staffordshire and Lancashire CSU, delivering significant savings and resulting in successful appointment to the Lead Provider Framework. She was also pivotal in the transformation work that took place across the whole of the Staffordshire health and social care economy.

As part of her significant private sector experience, Debbie led five acquisitions from initiation through to integration, delivering £3.5million of savings and significantly improving the customer experience. Whilst in the business support sector she successfully turned around five different businesses, moving them from loss making to profit making. This involved restructuring, and establishing procurement initiatives and growth strategies. Her commercial focus has played a major role in establishing and growing the CSU, while continuing to deliver services of the highest quality.

Debbie has sponsored successful and leading-edge IT projects, including Oracle implementation, a virtual desktop solution, time recording, optical scanning and tele-based employee lone-worker systems. She also endorsed the move to a dynamic purchasing system for the continuing healthcare service, which has reduced the cost and increased the quality of care home placements.

Debbie has a track record of financial delivery, over-achieving on financial targets for seven consecutive years in the business support sector. She was also instrumental in delivering to target for the CSU’s first two years of existence.