Heartbeat August 2019

Remembering Tony –
the man behind the legacy
Roger Stedman and Tony Waite taking part in the Birmingham Velo November 2017
Many Heartbeat readers will be
aware of the recent death of our
Director of Finance Tony Waite and
will have felt the loss of one of our
valued #SWBHfamily members as it
reverberated across our organisation.
Dinah Mclannahan Acting Director of
Finance, said: “Tony’s illness and now his
passing has come as a huge shock to the
finance and procurement team. I have
personally worked closely with Tony since
the Outline Business Case for Midland Met
was approved in June 2014. I subsequently
joined the Trust in October 2017 as Tony’s
deputy. He was tremendously respected
by local and national NHS finance leaders,
the Trust having delivered consistently in its
financial obligations and also for his work
nationally helping other Trusts in financial
distress. I owe him a huge personal debt
of gratitude for the opportunity to work in
such a great organisation, something for
which I will be forever grateful. All of us in
the finance and procurement know how
proud he was of what we have achieved
together. We are determined to carry on
his legacy of strong finances to support
improvements in quality of care provision.”
Toby Lewis, Chief Executive commented:
“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 thirty 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.”
Richard Samuda, Chairman added: “Tony
made a significant contribution to our
Trust in his time here. He was thoughtful
and highly professional - especially evident
in steering the complex investment case
for Midland Met through the necessary
approval processes. We will miss him as
a good colleague and team player who
strongly represented the best values of the
NHS. Our thoughts are with his family in
their loss.”
Personal tribute from close friend
and colleague Dave Baker
But there was so much more to Tony
than his keen professional mind, as
colleague Dave Baker, Director of
Partnerships and Innovation explained:
“I’ve known Tony for 20 years. From
very early on I felt trusted by him and
through that trust I was able to operate
and innovate in new ways. We were
always clear that for us to realise a
financial benefit we had to have clarity
around ‘line of sight’ which led us to the
conclusion that a financial benefit can
only be realised through one of three
categories: pay, non-pay or income and
that words like productivity were one
step removed from the real benefit.
“From an initial work relationship Tony
and I developed a friendship that saw
us, amongst other things, play golf
each year at the Manchester Children’s
Hospital golf day with the, then Finance
Director of the Manchester Children’s
Hospital and the now Chief Executive of
Sunderland and South Tyneside NHS FT.
This annual event saw us contribute to
a very good cause whilst sharing ideas
and having fun. As Tony moved to the
Midlands to work at the Trust I got him
to come to a Worcester City football
game to break up his week, and through
him I came to know his wife Lynn and
his daughters Sophie and Charlotte, in
whom he was incredibly proud.
“A proud Yorkshireman, I know that one
of Tony’s proudest work achievements
was being the Director of Finance when
Mid Yorkshire Hospitals NHS Trust
signed off and constructed the new
Hospital in Wakefield. So this passion
was replicated in the tireless work did
on the development of the Midland
Metropolitan Hospital for the people of
Sandwell and West Birmingham. He
was proud as we balanced the books
two years ago and then reduced our
underlying deficit by a third last year. This
was all done whilst striving to remove
the right cost rather than any cost.
“Tony is a huge loss, but who he was,
and what he stood for will live on
in many of us, as will our passion to
complete what we he started for the
benefit of those who most need it.”
If you wish to donate in Tony’s memory please go the Wakefield Hospice
donation page https://www.wakefieldhospice.org/Support-Us/Fundraising/
Donate. Under “Reason for Donation” you can, if you wish, mention Tony and
that you are a colleague from Sandwell and West Birmingham NHS Trust.
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