Dr Steve Dunn, CBE is a 2003-4 Commonwealth Fund Harkness Fellow and Senior Visiting Fellow at the Nuffield Trust.
He was the Chief Executive of the West Suffolk NHS Foundation Trust between 2014 and 2021. In May 2016 the hospital went successfully live with its new Cerner electronic patient record system and West Suffolk was subsequently identified as one of 12 national Digital Exemplar sites to lead digital transformation across the NHS. Steve was instrumental in transforming the trust from an acute hospital to a combined acute, community, primary care and social care provider. Steve led the Trust to an ‘Outstanding’ rating from the Care Quality Commission (CQC) in January 2018. In December 2018 he was awarded a CBE for services to health and patient safety. In March 2019 the Health Service Journal ranked him as the 3rd best chief executive in the NHS. In 2019 he secured the prioritisation of the Trust as one of 40 new hospitals to be re-built across the NHS and was pivotal in negotiating and securing a site for the new hospital. He led the organisational recovery and learning following a complex internal HR and data breach investigation.
Prior to joining the trust, Steve led the South of England as a National Director at the Trust Development Authority delivering the strongest regional performance on A&E, waiting times and cost improvement. He was also the Director at Midlands and East where he was the architect of the innovative Hinchingbrooke franchise and introduced the Friends and Family test into the NHS. Before that, he was a senior advisor in the Department of Health. He received the Laing and Buisson ‘Independent Healthcare 2012 Outstanding Contribution’ award.
In 2011, Steve received the ‘Outstanding Contribution by an Individual’ award from Health Investor, recognising his efforts in transforming the NHS. Steve is also widely published in leading economics journals and an international authority on the economics of John Kenneth Galbraith. He was awarded the prestigious K. William Kapp prize from one of Europe’s largest economics associations. He has previously published The Economics of John Kenneth Galbraith with Cambridge University Press and the four-volume reference collection, John Kenneth Galbraith with Routledge. An account of his first years as a CEO is published in An NHS Baptism of Fire.