New Balfour Hospital project director appointed

A project director has been appointed by NHS Orkney to take forward the new  Balfour Hospital and health care development.

Ann McCarlie has over 28 years experience with the NHS. She began her career with Basildon and Thurrock Hospitals Trust in Essex, where she worked in the management accounts team before becoming a business manager for theatres and anaesthetics.

In 1993 Ann moved to Scotland to take up the post of business manager for A&E, surgery and orthopaedics with the Queen Margaret Hospital Trust in Dunfermline and later became directorate manager for orthopaedics and A&E in NHS Fife.

In 1998 Ann became NHS Fife’s strategic planning manager and in this role supported the development of the “Right for Fife” strategy that eventually led to the new build 500 bed extension to the Victoria Hospital in Kirkcaldy. She become the project manager in 2002, until the new building became operational in 2012.

For the past two years Ann has been programme management office lead, a role she pioneered in Fife, responsible for a wide range of clinical improvement and financial projects.

She said: “I am delighted to be taking up post as project director at this very exciting point as we launch the procurement phase of the project.

“There has been a lot of hard work by everyone involved to get here with a lot more to come. But there is a strong team in place and we are all looking forward to the challenges the next few years will bring to deliver the new hospital and healthcare facilities that the people of Orkney deserve.”