OBITUARY: Tony Waite

It was with great sadness that the HFMA learned of the passing of Tony Waite, a leading NHS finance director and enthusiastic contributor to the life of the association.

Two years’ ago, he was diagnosed with a brain tumour, which was removed. Following treatment, he was hoping to use his expertise and experience in a non-executive role. However, his cancer returned, and he died peacefully on 2 August at the Wakefield Hospice. He is survived by his wife Lynn and two daughters.

A native of Wakefield, Mr Waite spent almost eight years as finance director of the local Mid Yorkshire Hospitals NHS Trust. When he joined in 2003, the trust was in deep financial difficulty. In 2003/04, it reported an £18.6m deficit, the largest of any single organisation in the English NHS that year.

As a result of ongoing financial difficulties, the trust was placed in special measures in 2007 – under the new financially challenged trusts regime. However, Mr Waite successfully led the trust out of special measures in 2009, partly by taking a system-wide approach involving the local primary care trusts and strategic health authority.

Andrew Pepper, who worked with Mr Waite at the Mid Yorkshire trust and has known him for 16 years, said: ‘One of his main achievements at Mid Yorkshire was organising the new hospitals at Pinderfields and Pontefract. The time and effort, strategic thinking and resilience needed to deliver that was significant. I spoke to him a month or two ago and he said it was always his aim to get the doors open on the new hospitals, and he achieved that.’

‘I got to know him personally and he was kind, generous and he had a brilliant strategic brain. Added to that, he had integrity, he had wisdom and he was fiercely loyal.’

Jane Hazelgrave, the current finance director at the Mid Yorkshire trust, also speaks warmly of Mr Waite. ‘I was at the strategic health authority when Tony was at Mid Yorkshire and we did a lot of work together, particularly on the new private finance initiative hospitals and because the trust was financially challenged.

‘The PFI was a mammoth job for him. He worked really hard on it and was instrumental in bringing the hospitals to the patients and populations of Wakefield and Pontefract. I don’t think we would have these hospitals without him.’

Mr Waite is still fondly remembered in his former finance team in Wakefield. ‘One of my heads of finance said he encouraged them to qualify and was so supportive in getting them there. Clinicians here also speak highly of him. He was a really nice person – I spoke with him frequently and he always gave me good advice.’

Mark Johnson worked with Mr Waite at the Mid Yorkshire trust while it was in special measures, having first met him through the HFMA. ‘He was a really easy person to work with and led by example. He used to get everybody involved to produce a collaborative solution. He kept a stack of books where he’d write down the numbers and he’d refer to them during meetings. You knew you could never pull the wool over his eyes.’

He encouraged finance staff to join the HFMA – as well as chairing the HFMA Yorkshire and Humber Branch for many years, Mr Waite was also a member of the association’s Provider Finance Faculty. He was always keen to support staff who wanted to add to their skills. ‘Getting training was never an issue. He didn’t force anyone to train, but he created an atmosphere where it was a positive thing,’ Mr Johnson added.

Mr Waite’s work on the trust’s financial turnaround and the PFI led him to be shortlisted for the HFMA Finance Director of the Year Award in 2008.

In 2011, he became finance director and deputy chief executive of Burton Hospitals
NHS Foundation Trust and then joined Sandwell and West Birmingham NHS Trust in 2014 as finance director.

Toby Lewis, the Sandwell trust’s chief executive, said: ‘Tony was a valued colleague and leader in our organisation, with a wide circle of friends both inside and outside the trust. As one of the principal architects of our work on long-term finance, on new estate including the Midland Met, and on public health, Tony was passionate about the NHS and placed the highest value on improving the quality of patient care.

‘I know that he remained fiercely proud of this organisation, clinically and in terms of our ambitious vision, and will be missed in all the organisations he served over a career with more than 30 years as a director, including his five years with us. Our aim going forward in his memory will be to continue to try and deliver our 2020 Vision – reporting back next year to local residents as we promised we would.

‘Trust was such an important part of how Tony worked, and who he was, and I know he would want to try and build even more confidence from local people in the honesty with which we deliver change and improve care.’