Simon Carruth CEO

Simon Carruth, formerly the Medical Foundation's Director of Finance, was appointed Chief Executive Officer in February 2006, having held the post of acting director for the previous year.

Announcing the appointment, then chairman of the board of trustees Rex Bloomstein praised the stability Simon had brought to the organisation, and the "fine and important work" he had done leading the development of the MF's strategic plan for the subsequent three years.

"We concluded that he was the outstanding choice from a short list of four strong candidates," said Rex.

Simon joined the MF in 1991 from Hackney Co-perative Developments, a voluntary sector agency helping establish co-operative businesses.

Prior to his work there, Simon, a philosophy graduate from Jesus College, Cambridge, had worked in a number of capacities for the Confederation of British Industry, including head of the central secretariat. He also holds a Master of Business Administration degree from the London Business School.

Simon outlines the MF's priorities as including a review of some of the structures, systems and standards that have been created in the organisation's history "to ensure that we are thoroughly professional and accountable in all our functions".

"Other priorities include providing more services in the UK outside London, where increasing numbers of our clients are located due to the Government's policy of dispersing asylum seekers.

"We will continue to challenge asylum regulations that result in many clients becoming destitute. We will also continue to explore ways that vulnerable victims of torture can be identified and offered appropriate services in the context of an asylum system which demands very speedy and sometimes flawed decision-making, dispersal and in some cases over-hasty removal."

Simon also pledged that the MF would continue to campaign against the recent erosion of domestic and international human rights standards on the treatment and interrogation of prisoners held in the "war on terror".