Jacob Lant joins National Voices as Chief Executive

Today is an exciting day for National Voices. Jacob Lant, formerly Head of Policy, Public Affairs and Research and Insight at Healthwatch, has joined the National Voices team as Chief Executive. 

Jacob is a committed advocate for working with people accessing health and care to help improve the accessibility and quality of the care they receive. He loves to combine deep qualitative insights with quantitative data to challenge traditional thinking on how to tackle policy challenges. Jacob has spent almost 10 years helping to build the Healthwatch network, during which time he has led successful national policy influencing campaigns on a huge variety of topics. He has also worked in local Government and for the British Library. 

The Board of Trustees, and the team would also like to take this opportunity to thank Sarah Sweeney, who stepped into the Interim Chief Executive role following Charlotte Augst’s departure in October last year. Sarah has provided strong, effective leadership in this period of transition. Sarah will be staying at National Voices, taking the leadership on membership and development. 

We are also delighted to announce that Sharon Brennan, formerly Senior Policy Manager at the Taskforce for Lung Health has also joined the team. She will be job sharing with Dr Rebecca Steinfeld, and they will jointly lead on policy and external affairs. 

Helen Buckingham, Chair of National Voices says: 

We are delighted to welcome Jacob to the National Voices team. As we navigate some of the most challenging times any of us have ever experienced, ensuring that the voices of people with lived experience are listened to by decision-makers has never been more important. Jacob’s passion to make a real difference to people who use health and care services shines through everything he does, and we know he will lead National Voices from strength to strength. Sarah Sweeney has been a fantastic Interim Chief Executive and we are very pleased that she will be staying with us in her new role.

Jacob Lant, who has today joined National Voices as Chief Executive says: 

I am really excited to be joining the National Voices team. These are challenging times for the NHS, social care and the voluntary sector, but I know we have a wonderful team who are dedicated to putting people at the heart of some of the biggest decisions facing the country.  

I know from my early conversations that National Voices and the members have been busy feeding in to everything from the workforce plan to the major conditions strategy, and I look forward to getting stuck in straight away.  

I also wanted to take a moment to thank Sarah again for having led the organisation so excellently over the last six months. I am delighted that she will be staying on with the senior team as part of expanding plans around support for members and to help strengthen National Voices’ financial sustainability.