By Bill Heaney
Professor John Brown, chairman of the local Health Board, is retiring this month.
He ended his eight-year term of office, which was dominated by the covid pandemic and unusual patient deaths at the Queen Elizabeth University Hospital, with a series of governance meetings within the Board and the meetings of the Board Chairs Group and West of Scotland Chairs Group.
He also chaired the quarterly meeting of the NHS Scotland Global Citizenship Advisory Board and continued to support the roll-out of the NHS Scotland Blueprint for Good Governance, including presentations to the NHS 24 and NHS Orkney Boards.
And he concluded his external governance review of NHS Forth Valley. Looking forward, he highlighted the Annual Review of NHSGGC, to be hosted by Michael Matheson, Cabinet Secretary for NHS Recovery, Health and Social Care, on 13th November.
This was Professor Brown’s final Board meeting as his second term as Chair. He spoke of the privilege of being the Chair of NHSGGC for the past eight years and of having learned much in that time about the NHS and about the frontline staff and managers who went above and beyond to deliver services to the public.
The Chief Executive, Jane Grant, and Vice-Chair, John Matthews, both recorded their thanks and gratitude to the Chair for his leadership of the Board. The Scottish Government announcement on the new Chair is still to be made.