The BHTA (British Healthcare Trades Association) has appointed Mandie Lavin as its new director general; she is a practising barrister and brings great experience to the BHTA from a career spanning healthcare, law and accountancy.
Mandie began her career as a nurse at Guys Hospital working across a range of surgical specialties, then held positions at the Brook Hospital in Greenwich, Peterborough Hospitals NHS Trust and the Anglia and Oxford Regional Health Authority.
She became the director of professional conduct at the UK Central Council for Nursing, Midwifery, and Health Visiting (now the Nursing and Midwifery Council), the director of professional standards at the Chartered Institute of Management Accountants, and then the director of legal affairs at the Royal Pharmaceutical Society of Great Britain.
Mandie also served as the director of the Bar Standards Board and helped to establish the independence of the regulator within the Bar Council (the Approved Regulator of barristers).
In September 2011, she joined the General Optical Council as director of regulation where she remained until December 2014. In January 2015 she became the chief executive officer of the Chartered Institute of Legal Executives, a leading training organisation and membership body for lawyers. She has recently re-joined chambers and changed from being an employed barrister to a self-employed barrister, having previously spent some time at the helm of a leading funeral trade association.
She has also been a trustee of the Board of the Patient’s Association and is a freeman of the Worshipful Company of Spectacle Makers, one of the City of London Livery Companies. She also chairs the Registration Panel of the General Medical Council, the Appointments Committee of the Institute of Osteopathy, and is a member of several high-profile legal and medical associations.
Commenting on her appointment Mandie Lavin says: "I am thrilled to have been appointed as the new director general of the BHTA and am looking forward to working with the members and the entire team.
"The healthcare and assistive technology sector is growing due to demographic changes, but faces many challenges ahead. The BHTA has an essential role to play in helping to fairly promote the interests of nearly 500 member companies and ensuring that they have a very high reputation for serving the interests of their many vulnerable customers.
"The BHTA needs to speak up loudly and effectively on their behalf in order to support their successful growth and ensure that people can continue to buy with confidence from BHTA member companies.’
BHTA chair, Alastair Maxwell, says: "Mandie Lavin brings great experience to the BHTA. She has tremendous ability, management and leadership skills and her previous roles as a barrister, in healthcare and in regulation will help us to take the next steps forward to promote the BHTA vision of ‘better health, better care, better value."
