Lord-Lieutenant of Dunbartonshire - Mrs Jill Young MBE

Lord-Lieutenant of Dunbartonshire

Mrs Jill Young MBE

Jill is married to Rob who spent 30 years in the Royal Navy, they have a son Conor who has also taken a career as an Engineer in the Royal Navy. Her career started in NHS Scotland 40 years ago when she took a ‘temporary job’ as an
Auxiliary Nurse. However, she quickly realised that caring for others would be her lifetime passion and trained as a Registered Nurse before moving into NHS Management.

Determined to make a difference to patient care across the whole of Scotland and beyond, she ensured that valuing all staff, innovation and an unrelenting focus on quality, created a more efficient, effective and above all caring healthcare system. Her final permanent appointment was as Chief Executive of The Golden Jubilee Foundation 2004-2018.   A unique ‘flagship’ NHS Board for Scotland comprising the Golden Jubilee National Hospital, a 4* Conference Hotel, a Research Institute, and the National Innovation Centre. As Scotland’s National Hospital she led the development of:

• Scotland’s only Heart Transplant Unit
• A major centre for Orthopaedic and Ophthalmic Surgery
• One of the largest Cardio-Thoracic centres in the UK
• A major Diagnostic Imaging Interventional Unit

Over her 14 years leadership the Hospital expanded by over 900% and developed a range of services for Scotland and employed almost 2000 staff.  Before she retired Jill secured capital investment to almost double the size of the hospital.   She has travelled the world including Catalonia, Las Vegas, Norway, Washington, and Brunei to lecture and share the Golden Jubilee Hospital and NHS Scotland’s success in Innovation and Quality of Patient Care.

In March 2020 she was asked on behalf of the First Minister of Scotland to design, build and run Scotland’s Covid Hospital, NHS Louisa Jordan. The commission was delivered in under three weeks providing a 1100 bed covid hospital with full operational functionality. Jill was then asked to lead Scotland’s COVID Testing Programme which saw testing capacity go from 250 per day to 40,000 per day including mobile units and new Laboratory capacity.

These were exceptional programmes delivered at a scale and pace never before seen to protect the community and the NHS. Jill was awarded an MBE in Her Majesty The Queen’s 2020 Birthday Honour’s List for her services to the NHS.
Jill and her family have continued to support many Community and Military Charities over the years including the RNRMC, RN Ship Charities, the armed forces charity SSAFA, Disability Sport Scotland, British Heart Foundation, and HMT Lancastria Trust.