Sir Ian James Carruthers is a former senior director for the National Health Service (NHS). Having first joined the NHS in 1969 as an administrator at Garlands Hospital, Carlisle, he rose through a career which included six months as the interim Chief Executive of the NHS in England during 2006. He has been the Chancellor of the University of the West of England since 2011. Early life Carruthers grew up in a council house in Carlisle. He was a keen sportsman who won county caps for Cumbria in rugby union, cricket and soccer in his school days. He was offered a playing contract by Carlisle United football club but turned it down at the insistence of his father. NHS career Regional health Carruthers held management positions in Barnsley, Blackpool, Southend, Portsmouth and Plymouth before Chief Executive roles in Dorset and Somerset plus Hampshire and Isle of Wight regional health authorities. He was appointed Chief Executive of the South West strategic health authority (SHA), known as NHS South West, on 1 July 2006. This SHA later "clustered" with NHS South East Coast and NHS South Central to become NHS South of England, led by Carruthers, ahead of the so-called "Lansley" reforms that signaled the end of SHAs, the Health and Social Care Act 2012. Carruthers and the South West SHA were criticised by an employment tribunal following the dismissal by Royal Cornwall Hospitals NHS Trust of its chief executive John Watkinson; however an independent review conducted by Lucy Scott-Moncrieff, former president of The Law Society, concluded that there had been no impropriety. Mr Watkinson argued that his dismissal was because he had opposed SHA plans to reconfigure upper gastrointestinal services within the South West of England by centralising services at Plymouth on the grounds that there had been insufficient public consultation and the process was therefore illegal. Mr Watkinson took his case to an employment tribunal which held, unanimously, that Mr Watkinson had been unfairly dismissed. NHS Chief Executive Sir David Nicholson subsequently commissioned an independent review (conducted by Verita) "into the approach and behaviour of NHS South West in relation to the dismissal of John Watkinson by Royal Cornwall Hospitals NHS Trust". Its report concluded: "We consider that Sir Ian behaved correctly towards Mr Watkinson... The evidence provided to us shows that the SHA complied with its duty to assist and support RCHT in managing these difficult issues. There is