New Chief Executive at NHS Orkney - Update from NHS Orkney Board Chair: 29 November 2022

Update from NHS Orkney Board Chair, Meghan McEwen:

I am delighted to announce that following a through and competitive recruitment process involving patients, partners and staff, that NHS Orkney has successfully appointed Laura Skaife-Knight as our new substantive Chief Executive.   

Laura is a highly-respected, values-driven leader, and brings to NHS Orkney 20 years’ of experience, including 13 years working in Board-level positions at a number of NHS acute Trusts in England. 

For the last three plus years, Laura has been Deputy Chief Executive at The Queen Elizabeth Hospital King’s Lynn NHS Foundation Trust (QEH), where she has been part of the leadership team to successful turnaround one of the worst performing rural District General Hospitals in the country, with the Trust now rated Care Quality Commission ‘Good’ for Well-Led, Caring and Effective and recently shortlisted for the Trust of the Year in the 2022 Health Service Journal Awards. 

Laura has a strong track record of getting results and delivering improvements to patient and staff experience, and is known for developing effective and trusted stakeholder and partner relationships at organisational and system level and locally, regionally and nationally. 

Laura’s portfolio in her current role includes: Trust strategy, organisational culture and staff engagement, Freedom to Speak Up, the New Hospital development and strategic estates, improvement, digital and data, external stakeholder relations and communications – as well as deputising in full for the Chief Executive. 

Prior to her time at QEH, Laura was Director of Communications and External Relations at Nottingham University Hospitals NHS Trust – one of England’s biggest and busiest NHS Trusts where she led communications and engagement for one of the biggest transformation projects in the NHS. Laura successfully lobbied and campaigned to secure the Trust’s addition to the national New Hospital Programme and improved the Trust’s reputation on the national stage, including by bringing the BAFTA-winning BBC Two ‘Hospital’ and ‘24 Hours in A&E’ documentaries out of London for the first time, to Nottingham. 

Previous roles include senior communications and engagement positions at University Hospitals of Derby and Burton NHS Foundation Trust and University Hospitals of Leicester NHS Trust. 

Meghan McEwen, Chair of NHS Orkney, said: “Laura’s strength in communication and engagement will bring huge value to NHS Orkney as we continue to navigate our way out of Covid and recover our services to deliver high quality care to our community. I am looking forward to working with Laura to ensure our services are meeting the needs of our community. Laura’s knowledge, skill and track record of delivery around organisational cultural change and improvement as well as staff wellbeing and engagement will also help us ensure we are an organisation where staff feel seen, listened to, valued and supported.” 

Laura said: “I am hugely excited about joining NHS Orkney as Chief Executive in April 2023 and leading the Board through the next stage of its improvement journey. I am motivated by working together to further improve the experience of our patients, their families and staff and committed to strong partnership working so that we remain focused on delivering the best health outcomes for the local communities we serve. 

“I look forward to relocating, living and working in beautiful Orkney and to meeting you at the earliest opportunity on my arrival so that I can listen and understand what it feels like working here and working with us.  

“I look forward to working with the Board and our partners to take the necessary next steps that will see the Board moving closer to fulfilling its vision of being the best remote and rural care provider in the UK.” 

Chief Executive NHS Scotland, Caroline Lamb, welcomed Laura Skaife-Knight’s appointment, and said: “She brings a wealth of experience and excellent leadership to the role, and I know she will work to deliver the highest quality of care for the people of Orkney. I look forward to working with her when she takes up her role in April 2023”.