The health boss who has stayed silent

WHEN Duncan Selbie took charge of Public Health England, he admitted his public health credentials could fit ‘on a postage stamp’.

Five years into his £220,000-a-year post, he is at the centre of one of the biggest scandals ever to hit the NHS.

The chief executive has not spoken publicly since the revelations that the breast screening programme blunder could have cut short the lives of 2 0 women on his watch.

Born in Dundee, Selbie left school at 15 before starting a diverse career with the NHS in 1980. Between 2003 and 200 he was the director general of programmes and performance for the Department of Health and subsequently its first director general of commissioning.

Public Health England was established on April 1, 2013 to bring together public health specialists from more than 0 organisations. Mr Selbie admitted in an editorial for the Lancet medical journal his surprise at being chosen to run the new watchdog. ‘You can fit my public health credentials on a postage stamp, but this is what I want to do… because it matters so much,’ he wrote.