HEALTH Minister Edwina Hart announced this week that Mr. Chris Martin will be appointed as chair of Hywel Dda NHS Trust. Hywel Dda NHS Trust was established on April 1, 2008, and provides health care services to the people previously provided by the Carmarthenshire, Ceredigion and Mid Wales and Pembrokeshire and Derwen NHS Trusts. Mr. Martin, who is currently chair of Pembrokeshire Local Health Board, will take up his new appointment on August 1. A new chair for the LHB will be announced shortly. Edwina Hart said: "I am extremely pleased to announce the appointment of Mr. Martin as chair of Hywel Dda NHS Trust and wish him well in his new role. "I would like to pay tribute to Mrs. Lynette George for her work as acting chair of the Trust since it was established and her contribution to the health service in the region as chair of the former Pembrokeshire and Derwen NHS Trust." Mr. Martin, born and bred in Pembrokeshire, now lives in Haverfordwest. He has had a successful career, owning his own chain of pharmacy businesses in the West Country and in Pembrokeshire. He is a practising pharmacist undertaking locum and consultancy work and has many other business interests, including his role as an executive advisor to Unichem Ltd. Mr Martin was the pharmacist board member and vice-chair of Pembrokeshire Local Health Group and more recently chair of Pembrokeshire Local Health Board since its inception in 2003.  A keen participant with local voluntary sector groups, he is one of the ambassadors for Pembrokeshire College and is also a guest lecturer on autism.  Mr. Martin is Welsh member of the Department of Health Professional Regulation and Leadership Oversight Group and in 2007 was appointed by Dawn Primarolo, Minister for Health, to oversee the splitting of functions of the Royal Pharmaceutical Society GB. Mr. Martin was awarded Fellowship of the Royal Pharmaceutical Society in 2006.