Our staff
We recognise that our staff are our single most valuable asset. We are committed to ensuring that staff are supported and developed so they can be enabled to truly make a difference within an environment that supports our values of ‘clinical excellence, service user empowerment' and ‘quality of the highest order'. We aim to recruit staff of the highest calibre in order to ensure the high quality of the clinical service delivered.
Dr Richard Pearson – Medical Director
Dr Richard Pearson is a Consultant Forensic Psychiatrist and Medical Director at Cheswold Park Hospital. He qualified in medicine and surgery at The Royal London Hospital Medical College and trained in Forensic Psychiatry at the Institute of Psychiatry and Maudsley Hospital London. Whilst at the Institute he published several papers on mentally disordered offenders and trained as a Forensic Medical Examiner.
At the Maudsley his work included visiting psychiatrist to Brixton Prison and working on the secure wards at the Bethlem Royal Hospital. After a post as Consultant Forensic Psychiatrist at Broadmoor Hospital, Dr Pearson went on to become Medical Director for Forensic Services for the Priory Group. Here he was directly involved in expanding their forensic division by developing new secure hospitals and the teams and systems needed to deliver high quality patient care.
Dr Pearson joined the project at Cheswold Park Hospital at the planning stage with the aim of developing a service that would deliver state of the art care to patients in partnership with those that commission their care.
Linda Stephens - Hospital Director
Linda Stephens has been appointed to the post of Hospital Director at Cheswold Park Hospital. Linda is a Qualified Nurse and has extensive experience in Healthcare, including 22 years in the NHS culminating in the role of Community Services Manager in County Durham.
Linda was a Hospital Manager at the Royal Hospital for Neurodisability at Putney, London, and more recently she was Hospital Director at Affinity Healthcare's Middleton St George hospital, and a member of the Senior Team at Affinity Healthcare. Linda and her team at Affinity developed a facility within a secure environment for borderline PD women, which was the first specialist unit of its kind in the North East.