Hospital boss who ‘shut down Lucy Letby concerns’ left NHS with £1.5million pension pot

Tony Chambers was CEO at the Countess of Chester Hospital and greeted Queen Camilla – then the Duchess of Cornwall – during a royal visit to the NHS facility in 2014

The hospital boss accused of shutting down concerns about killer nurse Lucy Letby has walked away from the NHS with a £1.5million pension pot.

Tony Chambers was CEO at the Countess of Chester Hospital and greeted Queen Camilla – then the Duchess of Cornwall – during a royal visit to the NHS facility in 2014. Mr Chambers, 57, had over £1million in his pension fund when he quit his Chester post in 2018 in the wake of Letby’s arrest over the deaths of babies in her care.

He had earned up to £160,000 a year at Chester and took up a series of other highly paid posts before leaving the NHS in June this year. Accounts show his retirement pot had reached £1.5million when he stepped down from his last post as interim chief of the Queen Victoria Hospital in East Grinstead, West Sussex.

In 2017, he and his wife bought a £550,000 Grade II listed home in Bolton, Lancs. A grandfather, he has described himself as “a wannabe ski god… I love skiing” – and a keen dog walker. In 2020 he said of the NHS: “We have a privileged role as care providers because we are there for people when they are at their most vulnerable, as well as when they are most elated, like when a new baby is born.”