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Senior Management Team
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Lois Howell
Chief Executive
Lois is a solicitor by background, and worked mainly in local government and the NHS across Sussex, Hampshire, the Isle of Wight and Kent before joining St Wilfrid’s in April 2023. Lois has also spent time working with national and international commercial healthcare clients on the introduction of effective quality and risk management systems. She has extensive Board level experience in clinical and corporate governance, and in healthcare regulation, and has been responsible for running NHS charities.
Lois’ passion, however, is for building, developing, and delivering excellent services for patients, their friends and families, and for making St Wilfrid’s a great organisation for which to work and volunteer.
Claire Magee
Medical Director
Claire studied medicine at Cambridge and Oxford Universities. She has worked in palliative medicine since 2009, starting her training in Wessex before moving to the West Midlands. During her training she undertook an MSc in Palliative Care at King’s College London and spent time in Uganda supporting the development of a palliative care degree course and the integration of new palliative care services.
She completed her training in 2014 and began her consultant career in Coventry where she led an NHS community palliative care team. She worked closely with the local hospices and held a role with the CCG.
Claire grew up in Emsworth and in 2019 she chose to move back to the area with her young family, joining the medical team at St Wilfrid’s. She brings her knowledge and experience of community palliative care and is passionate about providing end of life care to the local community.
Gemma Clapcott
Finance Director
Gemma joined St Wilfrid’s in 2026 as Director of Finance, bringing almost 30 years’ experience across the NHS, charity, aviation, hospitality and education sectors. An ACCA-qualified accountant with a degree in Accounting and Finance, Gemma has held a variety of finance leadership roles, developing extensive experience in financial management, governance and corporate services. Alongside this role, Gemma continues to work as an Associate Lecturer, supporting the development of future finance, business and IT professionals.
Gemma believes that strong support services provide the foundations for outstanding clinical care and enjoys working collaboratively to improve services, develop people and ensure the Hospice remains a sustainable organisation for the future.
Rachael Tout
Director of Income Generation
Rachael has 20+ years of commercial marketing experience across multiple sectors including food and beauty. She joined St Wilfrid’s during 2020 and is honoured to work with such an important local charity.
Rachael has responsibility for our retail, fundraising and marketing and communications functions within the organisation which contribute almost 80% of the income of the Hospice. These highly committed teams work together to generate funding for, and awareness of, our charity. This income supports the Hospice to deliver care to our local community.
Building relationships with our amazing local supporters and growing support across our fundraising activities and in our shops will help to secure sustainable income, enabling St Wilfrid’s to continue providing expert palliative care for local people into the future.
Cat Horlock
People Director
Cat brings her 15+ years of HR experience to the role of People Director at St Wilfrid’s Hospice. Joining us from the engineering sector, Cat has a passion for building strong networks and relationships that bring people together. Cat’s remit includes the HR function which takes care of our staff, and overall responsibility for Voluntary Services which supports our over 400 volunteers. Without our people St Wilfrid’s wouldn’t be able to function to support people with life limiting and terminal illness in our local community.
Cat enjoys learning about what inspires our staff and volunteers to work with St Wilfrid’s, improving their experience and working with the Senior Management Team to ensure there’s a voice at the table for our people. She looks forward to working in collaboration with other Sussex hospice HR leads to innovate services, and aims to become an employer of choice locally.
Cat supports our HR and Voluntary Services Team to make a difference to patients, loved ones, and our team every day.
