Health board chairman steps down from role

Tom Hayhoe has stepped down from a health advisory board with "immediate effect"

The chairman of a Jersey health board has stepped down after serving in the role for just over a month.

Deputy Tom Binet, minister for health and social services, said Tom Hayhoe would not continue as chairman of the Health and Community Services (HCS) Advisory Board with "immediate effect".

Mr Hayhoe was appointed on 28 February and had his first board meeting as chairman on 28 March.

Mr Binet said Mr Hayhoe had stepped down due to "differences in working styles".

'Mutually agreed'

He said another non-executive director would chair board meetings for the time being.

"We have mutually agreed this course of action given acknowledged differences in working styles," he said.

"Tom Hayhoe will vacate the post with immediate effect and one of the other non-executive directors will chair the board meetings on an interim basis."

The board was set up in 2023 to help improve the standards of care provided to islanders.

Analysis: Ammar Ebrahim, BBC Jersey political reporter

The departure of Tom Hayhoe was bound to raise questions about Deputy Binet who has been at the centre of several political storms in the last year.

He of course brought the vote of no confidence against the previous chief minister Deputy Kristina Moore and one of his colleagues in that government, Deputy Lucy Stephenson called him a destabilising influence.

The fact that Tom Hayhoe left his role because they had different working styles will embolden Binet’s critics to further question his credentials.

I asked the health minister if he was difficult to work with and he replied with a straight no.

He was adamant that he “doesn’t go looking for confrontation but I’m not afraid to take a difficult decisions when the time comes”.