John Hurley has been appointed chief executive of the Mater Private Healthcare Group in place of Fergus Clancy who is to become executive chairman.

As chief executive, Mr Hurley will be responsible for all group operations at the Mater Private’s hospitals in Dublin and Cork and at its cancer centres in Limerick and Liverpool.

Mr Hurley previously held the role of CEO of Mater Private Hospital, Dublin. A graduate of University College Cork, he undertook his surgical training in Ireland and completed his training as a heart transplant surgeon at the Cleveland Clinic. He was appointed consultant cardiac and transplant surgeon at the Mater Misericordiae University Hospital in 1995 and since then has also been a surgeon in the Mater Private.

In 2009, Mr Hurley was appointed chairman of the Mater Private Heart and Vascular centre and last year took up the post of chief executive of the Mater Private Hospital in Dublin.