Longstay's trail of destruction finally comes to an end

The longest serving senior manager in the NHS, Sir Trevor Longstay, is to retire after a career spanning nearly 50 years.

Sir Trevor who is currently chair of NHS Blithering Integrated Care Board, the organisation leading the country’s most challenged health system, expressed “deep sorrow and regret” at the decision but said “the time is right for me to step aside and make way for the next generation of chairing talent”.

Longstay worked his way up from humble beginnings as a mortuary assistant to become one of the NHS’s most prominent and successful leaders. Known for his style of managed brutality, Sir Trevor has long been a passionate advocate of “relentless and uncompromising grip”.

Trail of destruction

Sir Trevor’s career has been marked by scandals including unexplained deaths, cover-ups and failures of care.

In the words of one critic: “Trevor Longstay left a trail of destruction, cheerily sailing from one crisis to the next. His main – possibly his only – skill was an unerring sense of timing. He always managed to jump ship just before a crisis turned into a full-blown disaster.”

Defending his record, Sir Trevor acknowledged that his deep sense of public service could sometimes come at a high cost for those around him.

“If selflessness is a fault, so be it, but I have never shied away from a challenge. Inevitably this meant taking posts in institutions that were already in decline but where the cracks were not yet showing. My role was to be a catalyst for change, identifying problems and bringing them to the fore. By the time I left, the cracks would be plainly evident.”

Guilty as charged

Sir Trevor shrugs off the allegations of favouritism, nepotism, bullying and harassment that have dogged his career. “My approach is not for everyone. Did I encourage and reward loyalty? Was I tough but supportive on underperformance? Were my efforts to help staff to meet stretch targets sometimes misunderstood? If personal integrity is the charge, then you must find me guilty.”

No other NHS leader can beat Sir Trevor’s record for simultaneous chairing. At the time of his retirement, he headed nine NHS organisations and numerous charities. He continues to serve as an adviser to management consultancies, private healthcare providers and WasteAway Ltd, the Longstay family’s clinical waste business, which is run by Sir Trevor’s elder brother Sir Hugh Longstay.

Sir Trevor attributes his ability to juggle these commitments, which total nine and a half days a week, to “efficient time management and a proclivity for hard work”.

Pest control

Another Longstay record is for boardroom cleansing, which he refers to as “pest control”. He is unapologetic about the fact that his arrival as chair always prompts an exodus of senior management, starting with the chief executive. He attributes this pattern not to his own manner – which he admits can be “constructively abrasive” – but to the “lack of resilience and moral fibre of the current generation of managers”.

“I went to a school where having one’s feet held the fire was not a figure of speech but a practical way for the older boys to teach the younger ones about accountability. Sadly, this practice has gone the way of the sound thrashing and the cold shower. In my day, there were far more opportunities to learn the value of compassion,” he said.

Ultimate accolade

Sir Trevor’s reputation as a boardroom reformer appears to have softened during his time at Blithering, which many regard as the high point of his career. He has steered the ICB and its previous incarnations through a series of organisational changes and reforms in the past 15 years, but the management team has remained almost unchanged.

He attributes this success to the fact that a job at Blithering is considered “the ultimate career move, literally the end of the road for ambitious managers”.

“No one wants to work here and once they do, the prospects for getting another NHS management job are practically non-existent,” he said. “These may sound like drawbacks, but in fact they are a recipe for management stability and continuity.”

Ode to Joy

Sir Trevor praised long-standing colleagues Martin Plackard, director of communications and enablement, Dr David Rummage, medical director, and Bev Heaver, head of improvement and imagineering operations. “I commend their good fortune in being able to work under me,” he said.

Sir Trevor also thanked NHS Blithering chief executive Joy Hunter, who he called “plausible, presentable and wide ranging”.

He acknowledged that Ms Hunter would have an unenviable task during the process of NHS recovery. “But if anyone can steer a course between the rocks with minimal loss of life, it’s Joy,” he said.

Spending more time with his legacy

Paying tribute to Sir Trevor, Ms Hunter said: “Trevor has achieved so much, often in difficult circumstances, and rarely gets the recognition he believes he deserves. I’d like to thank him for his steadfast leadership, his unwavering support and his remarkable attention to detail. Most of all I’d like to thank him for his realism. Whenever we thought things couldn’t get worse, he was always able to prove us wrong.”

News of Sir Trevor’s retirement comes as several Blithering providers are braced for critical Care Quality Commission reports. He said it was “unfortunate” that he would not be around to see them – nor the results of an independent investigation of financial irregularities at the ICB, which is due to conclude next month.

Sir Trevor said he looked forward to spending time in his garden tending his roses and his legacy, though he remains open to offers of “interesting, suitably remunerated projects”.

Mission impossible

Asked what had given him the greatest pride, Sir Trevor struggled to pick his favourite reorganisation or cost improvement programme.

“There have been so many. It would be impossible to choose just one,” he said. “But as I reflect on my career, I’d like to think that I’ve left the NHS a more efficient place than I found it.”