MENTAL health and learning disability services in Kirklees, Calderdale and Wakefield have a new medical director.
Dr Nisreen Booya has been appointed to the role at the South West Yorkshire Mental Health NHS Trust.
The Trust provides specialist mental health and learning disability services for a population one million people across Wakefield, Kirklees and Calderdale.
Dr Booya will play a vital role in the development of the medical workforce and the delivery and modernisation of services.
Dr Booya has worked as a consultant psychiatrist in old-age psychiatry in Dewsbury since 1991.
She joined the South West Yorkshire Mental Health NHS Trust when it formed in April 2002.
She has been involved in the development of several innovative services that have been nationally acknowledged.
Dr Booya has also been a psychiatric tutor for the Royal College of Psychiatry for the past 14 years.
She has experience of tutoring both undergraduates and postgraduates.
Dr Booya will begin her role as medical director on a part-time basis whilst continuing with her clinical commitments.
As medical director, she will provide advice and support to the chairman, chief executive, trust board and directors on all medical matters.
She will be responsible for the management and leadership of medical staff and workforce development.
She will also contribute to the modernisation of services.
* The South West Yorkshire Mental Health NHS Trust was established on April 1 2002 and brought together mental health services previously run by other health trusts within the local authority areas of Wakefield, Calderdale and Kirklees.
The Trust is managed by a board, made up of executive and non-executive members, under the chairmanship of Sukhdev Sharma.
The non-executive directors are members of the local community. They are involved in key decisions about the way the Trust is run and organised.
Statistics show that one in four people will experience some kind of mental health problem in the course of a year.
