Ian Carruthers

Sir Ian James Carruthers OBE is a former senior director for the National Health Service (NHS). Having first joined the NHS in 1969 as an administrator at Garland Hospital, Carlisle, he rose through the ranks in a 43-year career which included six months in the top job as Acting Chief Executive of the NHS in England during 2006.

Carruthers held management positions in Barnsley, Blackpool, Southend, Portsmouth and Plymouth before Chief Executive roles in Dorset and Somerset plus Hampshire and Isle of Wight regional health authorities.

He was appointed Chief Executive of the South West Strategic Health Authority (NHS South West) on 1 July 2006. This SHA later "clustered" with NHS South East Coast and NHS South Central to become NHS South of England, led by Carruthers, ahead of the so-called "Lansley" reforms that signaled the end of SHAs, the Health and Social Care Act 2012.

Other roles include serving on the Department of Health Financial Strategy Steering Group and on the Strategic Health Authorities Chief Executives Reference Group on Delivering Race Equality in Mental Health. In the past Carruthers was a member of the NHS Modernisation Board, the National Steering and Advisory Group for Shifting the Balance of Power within the NHS and he also served as a member on the Modernisation Action Team on Patient Access which contributed to the NHS Plan. On 7 March 2006 he took over as acting NHS chief executive, following the departure of Sir Nigel Crisp. He held this position until September that year, being succeeded by David Nicholson.

He has undertaken a review of innovation in healthcare, culminating in chairing the Innovation Health and Wealth Board which formed part of the Government strategy for improving the spread of best practice in healthcare.

He has published several papers on reviewing and improving the NHS and he co-chaired the Prime Minister’s Challenge on Dementia.

He chairs the public service consultancy, 2020 Delivery. and has a portfolio of interests relating to healthcare.

Sir Ian is Visiting Senior Fellow of the Health Services Management Centre at the University of Birmingham, where his published papers include:

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