Sir James Mackey, Chief Executive of Northumbria Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust, was appointed to be Chief Executive of NHS Improvement in October 2015[1] as a two-year secondment.
[2] He resumed his post as Chief Executive at Northumbria Healthcare Trust in November 2017.
[4] He was reckoned by the Health Service Journal to be the seventh most influential person in the English NHS in 2015,[5] and the third in 2016.
In 2021 he unsuccessfully applied to become NHS chief executive to succeed Simon Stevens, losing out in the open competition - alongside Dido Harding and Mark Britnell - to Amanda Pritchard.
[8] In January 2024, Sir James took over as CEO of the Newcastle upon Tyne NHS Foundation Trust.