Dr Sarah Wollaston has resigned as Chair of NHS Devon over continuing cuts to funding.

Announcing her resignation today (Tuesday, June 11), she also hit out at the lack of investment in NHS infrastructure.

In a series of posts on X - formerly Twitter - Dr Wollaston said: "With regret I have decided to resign as chair of NHS Devon. Thank you to all the wonderful NHS, care and voluntary sector teams that are out there doing their very best in challenging circumstances. Did not feel able to sign off on a further cut; elastic already stretched too far.

'Genuinely sad to be leaving NHS Devon but in a nutshell, not happy as chair to sign off on the financials so time for me to go. No point promising the unachieveable, especially if only achieveable with unacceptable consequences. 

“It really makes no sense to ‘punish’ the most challenged systems with penalties on their capital budgets when access to capital is essential to improving their performance, conditions and safety. The state of our infrastructure in too many places is frankly shocking.

“The next government needs to stop the cycle of capital to revenue transfers and pay serious attention to investing in NHS infrastructure. Also need to address the shocking waste of public money and lost opportunities due to delays in accessing capital.”

Dr Wollaston, a former Conservative MP, was appointed as chair of NHS Devon in 2021. In February 2019 she quit the Conservative party to join Change UK; she defected to the Liberal Democrat party in August 2019.