Embedding VCSE leadership at the heart of NHS Trusts

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In South East London, we are pioneering a new way of working between the VCSE sector and the NHS. Working in partnership with the South East London Integrated Care Board (ICB), we have launched the first programme in England that embeds senior VCSE leaders directly within NHS Trusts.

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Through the VCSE Strategic Leads programme, experienced leaders from local VCSE organisations work within senior strategic and decision‑making spaces across Guy’s and St Thomas’, King’s College Hospital, South London and Maudsley, and Oxleas NHS Foundation Trusts. Their role is to ensure VCSE leadership and community insight shape Trust priorities, transformation work, and service design from the outset.

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A different way of partnering with communities

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This programme represents a shift away from consulting communities only after decisions have been made. Instead, VCSE leadership is embedded at the very beginning of strategic work, helping ensure that communities influence priorities, shape decisions and co‑create solutions with NHS Trust colleagues.

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Each Strategic Lead is firmly rooted within the local VCSE sector. Working directly within a Trust’s senior leadership or strategy teams, their focus is to:

• build long‑term, equitable partnerships between NHS Trusts and the VCSE sector
• embed a consistent VCSE and community‑led perspective across strategy and transformation
• strengthen Trusts’ understanding of the breadth of VCSE organisations, especially smaller and ‘By and For’ groups
• generate learning that supports wider system change and builds the case for embedding VCSE leadership across all Trusts

By bringing VCSE strategic leadership into NHS Trusts, we are helping to develop shared leadership, mutual accountability and more community‑driven approaches to care.

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Our VCSE Strategic Leads

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We are proud to be working with a group of experienced VCSE leaders from across South East London, including leaders from grassroots and ‘By and For’ organisations. They bring deep knowledge of their communities and long‑standing experience in local systems.

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King’s College Hospital NHS Foundation Trust

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Sistah Stella Headley (CEO, RMUK Wellbeing)

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Sistah Stella is a longstanding community leader, cultural practitioner and CEO of RMUK Wellbeing, working  across Lambeth, Southwark and Bromley. She has deep experience of community development, mental health advocacy and creating spaces where people feel heard and respected. She also has a distinctive background in community media, having been the first Black woman to own a legal radio station in the UK.

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At KCH, she is embedded in the strategy team, helping to shape the trust’s new five year strategy through meaningful, culturally grounded engagement with local communities, and redesigning how King’s listens to, feeds back to and works alongside the VCSE sector.

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Oxleas NHS Foundation Trust

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Zuzana Fratrikova (Founder and CEO, Mama2Mama)

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Zuzana is a purpose‑driven leader who has transformed more than 20 years of high‑level corporate experience into grassroots community impact. She is Founder and CEO of Mama2Mama Baby Essentials, a rapidly growing charity based in Woolwich that operates a baby bank and community café, using a circular‑economy model to redistribute high‑quality children’s items and provide dignified, stigma‑free support to families experiencing hardship across Greenwich, Bexley, Thamesmead and wider South East London. Under her leadership Mama2Mama now supports hundreds of families each year in close partnership with the NHS, schools and local services.

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Zuzana will be part of the Involvement and Community Engagement Team at Oxleas, playing a key role in ensuring that the VCSE voice is front and centre in the delivery of Oxleas’ Building a Fairer Oxleas Services programme. She will bring frontline insight from the VCSE sector - particularly in relation to poverty, early years, family life and mental health - into strategic and neighbourhood‑level conversations, supporting Oxleas to co‑produce solutions with communities and work differently with partners to tackle health inequalities and shape fairer, more inclusive services.

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Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust (GSTT)

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Folake Segun (CEO, Healthwatch Lambeth)

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Folake is an experienced VCSE chief executive and advocate for patient and public voice, leading Healthwatch Lambeth’s work to bring local people’s experiences into health and care decision making. She has a strong track record of working across Lambeth and Southwark with the NHS and local authorities on engagement, insight and system change‑making.

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As VCSE Strategic Lead at GSTT, based with the integrator function, she will draw on this experience to strengthen how the trust understands andpartners with the VCSE sector, broadening relationships beyond the “usualsuspects” and helping build a more coherent, strategic approach to communityand VCSE engagement.

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South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust (SLaM)

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Adults

Diana Hofler (Head of Lambeth and Southwark services, South East London Mind (SEL Mind))

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Diana brings extensive experience from the charitable sectors in both the UK and US, with a career focused on mental health, older adults and community cohesion. As Head of Lambeth and Southwark services at SEL Mind, they lead a portfolio of support and recovery services across  South East London. Diana has a strong track record in staff and  service development, and in driving quality and inclusion, including leading organisations through accreditation with the Mentoring and Befriending Foundation and Age UK quality marks.

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As VCSE Strategic Lead for Adults at SLaM, they will use this experience to support the trust to develop a more consistent, equitable way of working with VCSE partners, and to rethink how SLAM positions itself within a wider network of community and voluntary organisations.

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Children and Young People

Sabrina Dixon (CEO and Founder, Social Inclusion Recovery Group S.I.R.G.)

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Sabrina is a south London–based educator, VCSE leader, and community activist with over 10 years’ secondary teaching experience, bringing lived experience and professional insight into the structural inequalities faced by children, young people, and families. She founded the Social Inclusion Recovery Group (S.I.R.G.), supporting young people and families with school exclusions, SEND processes, behaviour systems, and wider challenges in education. She holds civic leadership roles across partnerships including Lewisham Black Voluntary Network, the All-Age Mental Health Leadership Alliance, BLACHIR, and Admissions and Exclusions Appeal Boards.

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In her Strategic Lead role at SLaM, Sabrina will bring together classroom practice, community advocacy, and system leadership to ensure that the voices of children and young people, particularly those from African and Caribbean and other marginalised communities, shape how mental health services engage with schools, families, and the VCSE sector.

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Why this programme matters

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Embedding VCSE leaders within NHS Trusts helps ensure that local knowledge, lived experience and community‑led approaches genuinely shape how services are designed, delivered and improved. It also strengthens the partnership between the VCSE sector and the NHS, creating space for shared leadership and a more connected system.