Hospitals boss claims thousands in expenses as trust ranked worst in country
HOTEL STAYS: Lyn Simpson, chief executive of Hull University Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust
EXCLUSIVE
By Rick Lyon, Co-Editor
The chief executive of the region’s crisis-hit hospitals trust has been claiming thousands of pounds in hotel expenses as the organisation has slumped to the bottom of the national performance rankings.
Lyn Simpson joined Hull University Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust (HUTH) in July 2025 on a salary of £279,162 a year.
Since then, HUTH has officially become the worst performing trust in the country, now ranked 134th out of 134 by NHS England.
It was also this month named as one of five trusts nationally to be placed in a new Government ‘intensive recovery’ programme, with Health Secretary Wes Streeting claiming “failure has been tolerated for too long”.
The programme begins next month and could include changes in leadership, as well as the merging or separating of trusts.
HUTH is part of the wider NHS Humber Health Partnership (HHP) group, which includes Northern Lincolnshire and Goole NHS Foundation Trust (NLaG). NLaG is another of the trusts placed special measures, along with North Cumbria Integrated Care NHS Foundation Trust – which Ms Simpson left to join HUTH.
Now, despite the partnership having a cost savings target in excess of £100m this year, and staff having apply to senior management to buy basic items such as pens and pads of paper, The Hull Story can exclusively reveal Ms Simpson has been spending thousands on accommodation and travel.
Following a Freedom of Information (FoI) request, the trust has disclosed Ms Simpson has claimed £4,875 for 39 overnight stays – £125 per night. She has also claimed £629.65 in travel costs. HUTH has not revealed what time period this covers, but said Ms Simpson is still claiming accommodation and travel expenses.
Since joining the trust, Ms Simpson has brought in an ‘improvement team’, who have also been claiming similar expenses. The breakdown of the team’s claims from August 2025 to March 2026 is:
Sue Page – £4,582.13 on accommodation, £1,314 on travel
Moira Angel – £3,382.87 on accommodation, £1,410.40 on travel
Mark Graham – £4,206.23 on accommodation
Hilda Gwilliams – £1,431 on accommodation.
UNDER PRESSURE: Castle Hill Hospital
HUTH, which manages Hull Royal Infirmary and Castle Hill Hospital, has fallen from 123rd in September to 134th this month in NHS England’s Acute Trust League Table.
NHS England – the executive body responsible for leading and overseeing the NHS – ranks health trusts against a range of performance criteria, including patient safety, access to services and finances.
The table forms part of NHS England’s Oversight Framework, which it describes as “a consistent and transparent approach to assessing NHS trusts, ensuring public accountability for performance”.
Under the framework, trusts are graded from a ‘segment rating’ of 1, which is judged to be “high performance”, to 5, which is classed as “significant concerns”.
HUTH had been segment 4 but has been informed it is being reclassified as segment 5.
The trust is performing worse than the national average for every measure on the NHS England Data Dashboard, including for cancer treatment and A&E waiting times, and remains rated ‘Requires Improvement’ by the Care Quality Commission (CQC).
Staff have also voiced concerns about the number of ‘Never Events’ – deemed so serious, they should never happen – occurring at the region’s hospitals.
NHS England describes Never Events as “serious, preventable patient safety incidents that should not occur if healthcare providers have implemented existing national guidance or safety recommendations”.
The latest published data shows there were six Never Events at HUTH between April 2025 and January 2026.
Hull’s three MPs have also voiced serious concerns over claims of a “bullying culture” at the trust.
In a joint statement, Hull North and Cottingham MP Dame Diana Johnson, Hull West and Haltemprice MP Emma Hardy and Hull East MP Karl Turner said: “Hull MPs are extremely concerned that Hull University Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust is failing to provide acceptable standards of care to our constituents and is now rated the worst out of 134 acute NHS trusts in England.
CONCERN: Hull’s three MPs with Health Secretary Wes Streeting
“We know that the local NHS workforce has faced severe pressures and challenges in recent years, but these factors are not unique to our area. It would seem from our discussions with trade union members that frontline NHS workers are working flat out, but that turmoil and instability in the trust’s senior management have contributed to poor performance.
“We are also very concerned to hear complaints of a bullying culture.
“With increased Government investment in the NHS achieving improvements in health services around the country, including in key areas such as reducing waiting times, our NHS services around Hull should be on the up at the moment. They certainly should not be failing in basic areas like patient safety.
“Hull MPs are also in contact with the trust’s chief executive and health ministers to explore how and why this has happened, and what the plan is to turn this unacceptable situation around.
“We note that an improvement team is in place and we look forward to seeing immediate improvements.”
The Hull Story asked HUTH to comment on the expenses claims of Ms Simpson and the improvement team, at a time when the trust is underperforming so badly.
A spokesperson said: “The challenges facing our hospitals are not new and have been clearly evident for some time, with staff consistently telling us things have not been right for a number of years, including through the NHS Staff Survey.
“For example, staff have been raising concerns for several years about decision-making and whether reporting problems leads to change, and some Care Quality Commission recommendations have remained unfinished since 2019.
“Last summer, our interim CEO was asked by NHS England to step in and take a clear, open approach to understanding the scale of these long-standing issues.
“Since then a small team, introduced with NHS England’s support and made up of NHS secondees and senior leaders with decades of NHS leadership experience working in challenged organisations, has worked alongside clinicians across our hospitals and services to bring these issues together for the first time and develop the partnership’s first clinically-led improvement plan.
“As a result, we have strengthened the voice of our clinicians in decision-making, ensuring those delivering care are shaping how services are run and strengthening patient safety.
WORST TRUST IN THE COUNTRY: Hull Royal Infirmary
“These changes, and the focus on safety the plan brings, are reflected in this month marking the first consecutive three-month period without a clinical Never Event since the partnership’s formation in 2024.
“This temporary support is now drawing to a close, and we are moving into the next phase of delivery through NHS England’s Intensive Recovery Programme, focused on delivering the improvements set out by our clinicians, and strengthening leadership across our sites.
“We want to recognise the significant contribution of the team working alongside our experienced clinicians to develop the partnership’s improvement plan. They have helped ensure we are listening to our clinicians and acting on their priorities, restoring a clarity that had been lost over time.
“We are enormously grateful to our patients and communities for their continued support, and we recognise the impact these challenges have had over a number of years, while our colleagues have continued to deliver care in sometimes difficult circumstances.
“There is still a lot of work to do. These challenges have developed over many years and will not be resolved overnight, but we now have a clear, clinically-led plan and the right focus and support to deliver sustained improvement for patients across the Humber.”