15
March
2018
|
09:25
Europe/London

Queen appoints Senior Lecturer as High Sheriff for Greater Manchester

A Senior Lecturer at The University of Manchester is to be Greater Manchester’s next High Sheriff 

Dr Robina Shah will be officially installed as The High Sheriff of the region on 12 April in a ceremony at the University’s Whitworth Hall.

Each year a parchment called the Lites is presented to Her Majesty by the Chancellor of the Duchy with the names of those recommended to become High Sheriffs for the ensuing year.

The Queen personally marks the selected name with a small hole made by a bodkin in a ceremony believed to date back to the reign of Queen Elizabeth I. Lacking a pen, Elizabeth I decided to use her bodkin to mark each name instead.

Dr Shah is a Chartered Consultant Psychologist and Director of the University’s Doubleday Centre for Patient Experience, a ground-breaking centre which involves patients and the public in the training of doctors. http://sites.bmh.manchester.ac.uk/doubledaycentre/MeettheTeam/

Dr Shah, a graduate of the University is also an Honorary Fellow of the Royal College of General Practitioners and Fellow of the Royal Society of Medicine Open Section Council.

A Justice of the Peace and Deputy Lieutenant of Greater Manchester, she has also been Chair of Stockport NHS Foundation Trust and held regulatory and associate roles at the General Medical Council and Health Education England North West.

The academic is also passionate about football and is as an Independent Non-Executive Director at Manchester FA and the Football Association Women's Football Board and Disability Football Committee.

The Office of High Sheriff is a year-long independent non-political Royal appointment, whose date back to Saxon times, when the ‘Shire Reeve’ was responsible to the king for the maintenance of law and order within the shire, or county, and for the collection and return of taxes due to the Crown.

The High Sheriffs central role is to support the Crown and the judiciary. They also support the police, emergency services, probation, prison services and voluntary sector organisations.

Dr Shah will also support charities and organisations working with young people and other vulnerable members of the community.

These include The University of Manchester scholarship programme for disadvantaged children called Access Manchester  the Greater Manchester High Sheriff’s Police Trust and “We Love Manchester" Emergency Fund.

I am truly honoured and humbled to be appointed by Her Majesty the Queen to take the role of High Sheriff. It is a huge privilege to be the custodian of this historic public service role and I promise to serve the people of Greater Manchester with dignity, humility and sincerity throughout my year of office
Dr Robina Shah

A highlight of her year will be the creation of Team High Sheriff Greater Manchester. Dr Shah will appoint a number of Ambassadors who will help engage, encourage and involve young people in conversations about what matters to them, including their physical health and mental well-being.

As traditionally happens, her portrait will be ceremonially hung in Manchester's Crown Square Court Centre later this year.

She said: "I am truly honoured and humbled to be appointed by Her Majesty the Queen to take the role of High Sheriff.

“It is a huge privilege to be the custodian of this historic public service role and I promise to serve the people of Greater Manchester with dignity, humility and sincerity throughout my year of office.

“I will use this role as an opportunity to promote programmes run by our excellent volunteers in organisations that help vulnerable people- especially children, the frail and elderly, carers and others experiencing social and material deprivation.

“As an independent executive director at the FA and Manchester FA I also intend to organise events which bring together the football community.

High Sheriffs receive no remuneration and no part of the expense of a High Sheriff’s year falls on the public purse.

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