ICB chief to retire after decade leading county’s commissioning

Gloucestershire Integrated Care Board CEO Mary Hutton has announced she will retire in spring 2025.

Ms Hutton has been the chief executive of the ICB since it was created in 2022, and before that was the integrated care system lead, and accountable officer of Gloucestershire Clinical Commissioning Group since it was created in 2013.

When Ms Hutton retires it will mean every NHS provider organisation and the commissioning board in the county will have changed leaders in little over two years.

The system’s acute provider Gloucestershire Hospitals Foundation Trust has had a new chief executive start this year, while South Western Ambulance Service Trust, which serves Gloucestershire, also announced a new permanent CEO in 2024. Community provider Gloucestershire Health and Care Foundation Trust also appointed a new chief in April last year.

It is a similar situation faced by the Devon system, also in the South West, where all four leaders of its providers and ICB have stepped down in recent years.

Ms Hutton has worked for 14 years in Gloucestershire, and 36 years in total for the NHS in commissioning, performance and financial management. The ICB has recorded the strongest NHS Staff Survey of any, despite performance problems on the patch.

She said: “I am very proud of what we have achieved during my tenure, in particular our backing for a resilient primary care and continued long term investment in premises and our successful clinical programme group approach to leading service improvement across the system.”

Ms Hutton held a string of roles in commissioning organisations in neighbouring counties before coming to Gloucestershire in 2011.

Dame Gill Morgan, chair of Gloucestershire ICB, said: “Mary’s contribution to health and care in Gloucestershire is considerable. She has displayed great leadership over many years and has done so with compassion, integrity and a positive spirit.

“She is extremely well respected and well-loved in the county and her commitment to service users, in particular some of the most vulnerable in society, has marked her out as an excellent chief executive. We wish her a long, happy and healthy retirement.”