By Marjory Inglis, health reporter

Speculation surrounded the future of one of Tayside’s most able health service managers yesterday.

Almost three years to the day after Gerry Marr came to Tayside, the top job in Scotland’s NHS is about to be vacated with the announcement earlier this week that Trevor Jones, the chief executive of NHS Scotland, is moving on.

Mr Marr is thought to have a serious chance of taking the top job—if he wants it. He held senior appointments in the Scottish Executive health department prior to his appointment as chief executive of the former Tayside University Hospitals NHS Trust.

He has driven through change in Tayside, taking a lead in establishing a very different role for Stracathro Hospital by Brechin and more recently overseeing the withdrawal of consultant-led maternity services at Perth Royal Infirmary.

Despite a very hands-on role in Tayside, he has made frequent trips to Edinburgh and beyond, called to lend his expertise to the solving of national problems.

Yesterday the man who is being credited with playing a major part in turning around the fortunes of Tayside’s health service was unavailable for comment, enjoying a three-week holiday in Sri Lanka.

Mr Marr arrived in Tayside at a time when morale was at an all-time low and the health service was reeling from high-level resignations and a Scottish Parliament investigation into Tayside’s spiralling health budget.

He is a “change management” specialist and played a key role in reshaping the NHS nationally prior to his arrival in Tayside.

That move came after Mr Marr was involved in an expenses row while holding one of the top jobs at the Scottish Executive health department in Edinburgh.

Mr Marr has never agreed his appointment in Tayside was a sideways move with the deal being that if he cracked Tayside he’d get back to Edinburgh. Just the same, when the subject has been raised at regular intervals in good-humoured taunts, Mr Marr has never taken the bait. He just grins and seems to prefer to keep his own counsel on these matters.

When a seven-year plan to “redistribute” health services between Ninewells Hospital and Perth Royal Infirmary was announced last year, Mr Marr offered no pledge to see through the delivery of the grand plan. Specifically asked if he would remain in Dundee for the next seven years to see it through, Mr Marr avoided the simple yes or no. His answer offered no long-term commitment to Tayside.

“What you’re really asking me is if another management team comes in, will this all change,” said Mr Marr last November.

“I believe the continuity has to be delivered by the (health) board. Managers come and managers go but the board has to take responsibility for being absolutely consistent in the way it implements strategy.”

One senior figure in the NHS locally points to Mr Marr’s personal connections as a reason for seeing him rooted in Tayside. His partner, Carrie Fisher, who holds a senior management post based at Ninewells Hospital, is from Carnoustie and has family in the area. The couple have made their home in Dundee.

On the other hand, one NHS insider pointed out yesterday “He could commute to Edinburgh.”

Of one thing we can be certain, wherever Mr Marr decides his future might lie, he will decide when he tells us about it.