Nigel Crisp, Baron Crisp

Edmund Nigel Ramsay Crisp, Baron Crisp, KCB, is a British former senior civil servant in the Department of Health and Senior Manager in the NHS, who was awarded a life peerage upon retirement.

Crisp was appointed as Chief Executive of the NHS and Permanent Secretary at the Department of Health on 1 November 2000. He is unlike his predecessors or successor in combining these posts. He retired (many people suggest that he was forced to resign) on 7 March 2006, at a period of financial crisis for the NHS. He was replaced by Sir Ian Carruthers, as acting NHS Chief Executive, and Hugh Taylor, the Director of Strategy and Business Development, as acting Permanent Secretary.

Crisp is a Cambridge graduate in Philosophy. He first joined the NHS in 1986 from a background in community work, where he worked in Liverpool and Cambridgeshire, and industry.

Crisp then became the General Manager for Learning Disabilities in East Berkshire and moved in 1988 to become General Manager (and later Chief Executive) of Heatherwood and Wexham Park Hospitals which provided a wide range of general hospital and mental health services in East Berkshire. He moved to Oxford in 1993 to become Chief Executive of the Oxford Radcliffe Hospitals NHS Trust which at the time incorporated the John Radcliffe and Churchill Hospitals and is one of the largest academic medical centres in the country.

Crisp became South Thames Regional Director of the NHS Executive in February 1997 and London Regional Director in January 1999.

He was appointed Knight Commander of the Order of the Bath (KCB) in the New Years Honours 2003. He is married with two children and lives in the countryside near Newbury. His interests include the countryside, gardening and painting.

Resignation
On 8 March 2006 Crisp announced his intention to retire at the end of March, acknowledging the current financial problems of parts of the NHS as a disappointment. He was praised by the Prime Minister, Tony Blair, for his contribution to British healthcare and was created Baron Crisp, of Eaglescliffe in the County of Durham, on 28 April 2006.

His premature departure from the post of Chief Executive of the NHS has been claimed by the Conservative Party to have been a thinly disguised sacking, with Sir Nigel playing the role of scape-goat to Government Ministers.