Jackie Morton, a trustee of the Terrence Higgins Trust, will act as its interim chief executive while the charity recruits a replacement for Rosemary Gillespie, who was recently asked to stand down as chief executive with immediate effect.

Morton (pictured) will step down as a trustee to take on the role, the charity said in a statement today.

Before retiring in 2011 Morton worked for the NHS and “led many multi-disciplinary and professional teams through hugely successful and pivotal quality change programmes that will have great relevance to her work as interim chief executive,” according to a statement from the charity.

She will start on 27 July and remain in post until a permanent chief executive is appointed.

Morton joined the charity as a trustee in November 2014 and was the chair of HIV Scotland until earlier this year.

At HIV Scotland she established a new governance model for the charity. She is also involved with the UK Community Advisory Board, which is a network for HIV treatment advocates, and the British HIV Association’s primary care project.

Earlier this month THT asked Rosemary Gillespie to step down as chief executive immediately after just 15 months in the job.

Gillespie has since said that she was treated unfairly and that he board “did not have the stomach to see through the programme of change that I was brought in to deliver”.