Week 23: What is going on with (what used to be) Public Health England?

Written 23 August 2020

How did Dido Harding get her peerage? 

The was done by David Cameron in 2014, and was said to be to recognize the achievements of former business people. Her businesses had included Tesco, and Sainsbury’s operating board. She had no background in health. She is a member of a Tory think tank called “1828”, whose objectives are to replace the NHS by an insurance based system, and to abolish Public Health England 

 Chief Executive of Talk Talk 

 In October 2015 there was a ‘significant, sustained cyber-attack, aimed at the personal and banking details of about 4 million customers. Her response was described as ‘naïve’, and she admitted that she did not know whether personal customer data was encrypted. Marketing said: ‘her utter ignorance is a lesson to us all’. The cost to the company was £60M, with a loss of 95K customers. She undertook to step down from Talk, Talk after two months, and to claim a whole year’s salary – this was £550,000. The company were fined £400K. ‘The Week’ described her as “one of the most important unelected officials in the country’, but one could argue much more plausibility that that honour belongs to Dominic Cummings. Sarah Wollaston, conservative chairman of the Parliamentary Heath Committee, suggested that she should resign as a conservative peer and become a cross bench peer able to challenge the government. Baroness Harding did not accept this suggestion, saying she could criticise any future government. In fact she has never criticized the present government. 

 CE of Test and Trace 

In her next job her salary increased to £2.8M / year. The actual work was done by Serco, who somehow managed to avoid the usual steps before this contract was let. Clark of the Telegraph said her Test and Trace time has ‘been a disaster, an egregious example of chumocracy at work’. Layla Moran commented that her appointment is a reward for failure. Despite loud claims by No 10 that ‘we led the world in Test and Trace’ there were numerous problems with the UK version, which has not been copied in other countries. When Simon Thompson, a former Apple Executive, joined the Test and Trace group, it was clear that there had been a change of policy, and the Google / Apple version had eased out the previous version. But this version is also far from perfect. 

 The New Committee -‘The National Institute of Health Policy’ 

This is said to ‘bring together public health England and Test and Trace’, but so far only three members have been announced. It is too early to say who the scientists will be to advise Lady Harding and provide knowledgeable advice to the new committee. The previous committee had about 5 medical members. Whether the new Institute will be any better advised than the previous one must await events. The new institute will have Lady Harding to guide it, Michael Brodie as an interim CE, and Duncan Selbie. By the time you red this there may be scientifically well known members. Why is England’s approach so different from that of other advanced nations? We seem to be just passing the blame for past covid-19 mistakes. 

 It is quite clear that Lady Harding is unsuitable to do her present job, as she was appointed by ministers behind closed doors, not after an open and transparent selection process. Even more important, guidance produced by the new body is subject to ministerial control and influence, and will be undermined by doubts about its rigour and the extent it is subject to political influence.

How does Matt Hancock, the Health Secretary, fit into all this? 

Earlier blogs have dealt with the muddle and confusion that he has brought into the field. It will be recalled that we were unable to test for the virus, had no access the PPE, and were woefully short of ventilators urgently needed to keep those with severe infections alive. It was always a too little, and too late. He has been a minister who never showed any glimmer of a thought-out policy to deal with the crisis. What he desperately needs is someone to share responsibility for the mess. 

How seriously is Boris taking his duties? 

On April 20 Ms Smith Spark of CNN reported that the PM had failed to attend 5 Cobra meetings during January, well before he became infected with the virus. Since then, for whatever reason, he has absented himself a great deal from Cabinet meetings. Leaning on Mr Cummings is what he currently does, and there is little the cabinet can do about it. Dominic Cummings: We cannot tell what Dominic Cummings, the ghost in the machine, sees as the next step now. He has got rid of an excellent civil servant, but this is just a modest start. The PM must appoint Secretaries of State from outside Parliament; Whitehall must be open to outsiders; Ministers appoint chief executives; and Departments must be slimmed down. This is from an old paper, but it fits with what Dido Harding wants. 

 Conclusion – so what is going on? 

It is clear that our pygmy government is preparing for exciting times ahead, presumably agreed with Mr Cummings, who becomes easily the most powerful unelected official in the country. The forces that will oppose sinister future plans are the desirability of making some kind of peace with the EU; of some break through with the Scots; and some solution with the Irish government. It seems greedy to expect all three. Matt Hancock may well be afraid that there will be a major examination of his role early in the crisis, but that will not be how Mr Cummings sees things. Dido Harding, with her extreme views about the NHS, is a useful foil for Matt Hancock – and may even be acceptable to Mr Cummings.