UK Edition
Calls for a scientist to lead Public Health England's replacement body, not Baroness Harding
Experts say the new National Institute for Health Protection must be "science-led"
The organisation that replaces Public Health England (PHE) must be led by a scientist, rather than Baroness Dido Harding, health experts have said.
It follows severe criticism over PHE’s response to the Covid-19 pandemic, in particular the slowness to ramp up testing in the early weeks.
Boris Johnson has previously described the performance as “sluggish”.
Government sources said at the weekend that Baroness Harding, the former Talk Talk chief executive, is tipped to head the new body, which will be an amalgam of PHE’s pandemic response functions and NHS Test and Trace, which she currently leads.
However, independent medics last night criticised the proposal, one saying that allowing her to take control would “make much sense as Chris Whitty [the chief medical officer] being appointed the Vodafone Head of Branding and Corporate Image”.
According to a senior minister, the National Institute for Health Protection - intended to bring together the scientific expertise of PHE with the logistical power of the NHS - will be modeled on Germany’s Robert Koch Institute.
Professor Paul Hunter, professor in Medicine at the University of East Anglia, said: “The organisational culture needed for effective science is not the same as that needed for state bureaucracies nor that needed for commercial organisations.
“In this regard it is notable that the president of the RKI is a highly rated scientist himself.
“So if we do have a to have a new health protection organisation, please this be adequately funded, please can this be science-focussed and please can this be science-led.”
Matt Hanocock, the Health and Social Care Secretary, is understood to be seeking someone with experience of both health policy and the private sector, to lead the new body.
As CEO of the telecoms company Talk Talk, Baroness Harding oversaw one of the worse data breaches ever to have taken place in the UK.
In recent weeks she has sustained mounting criticism for the performance of NHS Test and Trace, which is now reaching fewer than half of close contacts of people who have tested positive for coronavirus.
Last night the British Medical Association said PHE should not be made a scapegoat for wider government failures.
The doctors' union also questioned the timing of the organisational shake-up, as the health service scrambles to prepare for the winter flu season and a possible second wave of the virus.
Meanwhile Dr Amitava Banerjee, a Professor in Clinical Data Science at University College London, said: “PHE was set up as an executive agency of the Department of Health and Social Care by a Conservative government and is politically controlled, reporting directly to the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care.
“Therefore, if PHE has fallen short, responsibility lies firmly with the current government and health ministers.”