Laura Skaife-Knight

Laura joined NHS Orkney in April 2023, bringing 20 years’ experience in the NHS and 13 years of Board-level experience to the Health Board. She has experience and a reputation for improving patient and staff experience in a range of England’s largest acute teaching hospitals to smaller, yet crucial, Trusts central to the delivery of regional integrated care. 

Laura joined NHS Orkney from The Queen Elizabeth Hospital King’s Lynn NHS Foundation Trust (QEH) where she was Deputy CEO between 2019 and 2023. Operational leadership, transformation and improvement, strategy development, strategic turnaround delivery, organisational culture change, staff engagement, communications, estates strategy, external relationship management, building integrated care systems and digital and data transformation are among her specialties.

At QEH, Laura was part of the senior leadership team to turnaround the organisation and put in place sustainable change as evidenced by the Trust’s 2022 Care Quality Commission inspection report which rated the hospital ‘Good’ for Caring, Well-Led and Effective, and saw the Trust being recommended to exit special measures, with the Trust now considered an exemplar in the NHS for sustainable change and continuous improvement.

Prior to this she worked for 12 years at Nottingham University Hospitals NHS Trust, where she was Director of Communications and External Relations, and Derby Hospitals Foundation Trust and University Hospitals of Leicester NHS Trust where she held senior communications and engagement roles.

 Getting in touch with Laura:

• Email:  laura.skaife-knight@nhs.scot
• Tel: 01856 888223
• Mob: 07766083251