Julie Paterson - chief executive

Julie Paterson was appointed chief executive of the Mental Welfare Commission for Scotland in August 2020. Julie’s first degree was in psychology before completing her Masters in social work. Julie qualified as a mental health officer in 1997 and worked across a range of operational and managerial roles within the social work service prior to becoming head of Adult Social Work Services and designated Chief Social Work Officer. Prior to joining the Commission she had been a senior manager in health and social care for five years retaining responsibility for adult social work services and also leadership and transformation across a diverse range of health services including NHS children’s services, health promotion, mental health, learning disability, psychology and addiction services. 

Ashley Dee - head of culture and corporate services

Ashley’s background is in law and his experience spans leadership and governance roles. He’s an experienced solicitor, dual qualified in both the England & Wales and Scotland jurisdictions, and has worked for a large law firm, a UK government inquiry and the SSSC. He has 11 years’ experience at an international medical defence organisation progressing into leadership roles where he managed large multi-disciplinary teams. Whilst there, Ashley acquired significant strategic change experience and - more latterly – led a governance function responsible for managing global third party supplier risk and performance.

Julie O'Neill - business change and improvement manager

Julie joined the Commission in December 2021 as our new business change & improvement manager from the NHS where she had work for 28 years. Julie started her career as office manager then moved into a variety of roles including quality co-ordinator, clinical effectiveness facilitator in mental health services, clinical governance lead within a community health partnership, business manager within a health & social care partnership and more recently her role prior to starting at the Commission was as a service manager within public health.

Arun Chopra - executive director (medical)

Arun has been with the Commission since 2019, initially as a consultant psychiatrist for safeguarded treatments before being appointed medical director in 2020. Prior to taking up his current role, he was a consultant psychiatrist in Edinburgh; Wellington, New Zealand; and in Nottingham where he trained in psychiatry. On a career break from medicine he worked as a House of Commons clerk through the Civil Service Fast Stream. He has post-graduate qualifications in psychiatry, medical law and ethics and has several academic publications in the field of mental health law. He was a member of sub-groups of the Independent Reviews of mental health law in England (2018/19) and in Scotland (2020/21). A previous recipient of the College’s Laughlin prize, he is a Fellow of the Royal College of Psychiatrists.     

Claire Lamza - executive director (nursing)

Claire joined the Commission in 2017 as a nursing officer. She then became one of the first senior managers in the organisation, before her recent appointment in 2022 as executive director (nursing). Claire has held a number of clinical and operational roles across a range of healthcare settings prior to joining the Commission. She has maintained an interest in specific areas such as forensic mental health and rehabilitation. As the most senior professional nurse within the Commission, Claire has worked with the Royal College of Nursing as a forum chair and more recently on the RCN Board (Scotland); she is also an active member of the Mental Health Nurses Forum (Scotland).

Suzanne McGuinness - executive director (social work)

Suzanne joined the Commission in 2021 as executive director (social work). Suzanne studied law and then social work. She has experience of working in legal roles, in prisons and across a number of roles in a large health and social care partnership area, most recently as the professional social work lead for the partnership reporting to the director. Suzanne has a keen interest in the law and rights-based practice and has experience of working with people of all ages in the community in both statutory and third sector organisations, in addition to working with people within prisons and people affected by imprisonment in the community.