Vaccine rollout is a heroic triumph of national teamwork
THE scale of the challenge was daunting, the potential for catastrophe enormous. Yet Britain’s vaccination programme – by far the biggest medical mission in our history – has been an astonishing success.
From the moment that 91-year-old Coventry pensioner Maggie Keenan received the first jab in December, the whole initiative has been characterised by remarkable efficiency. Other countries have looked on with envy. Government critics have been silenced.
Yesterday, another milestone was reached – the NHS had met its mid-February target for inoculating the 15 million people at the highest risk from Covid.
A quarter of the adult population has now received the vaccine, a far higher level than that of any other major nation. As the programme now moves on to its next phase, we are already seeing significant falls in Covid hospital admissions, rates of infection, and the death toll.
So the way may finally be open to start easing the lock- down in early March.
This achievement is all the more impressive, given the difficulties that plagued the Government’s initial response to Covid, such as the botched supply of PPE and the inadequacy of the testing regime.
BUT ministers learned their lessons from those early failures. The vaccination rollout strategy was planned better and the leaders chosen more shrewdly.
Moreover, instead of building an entirely new organisation as happened with test-and-trace, the Government relied on the vast pool of talented enthusiasm that already existed in the NHS and the voluntary sector. A phenomenal collective effort in the heroic British traditions of solidarity, compassion and self-sacrifice.
There has been something of the Blitz spirit, harnessing the skills of 30,000 NHS workers and 80,000 volunteers who have been trained to give jabs, including 30,000 from the St. John’s Ambulance Brigade. Typical of these is Callum Heneghan, a supermarket delivery driver from Manchester who volunteered with St John’s, telling the BBC he was “grateful and privileged to be helping”.
For the NHS, the vaccine rollout has perhaps been its finest hour. So often condemned as a lumbering, bureaucratic monolith, it has in fact proved flexible and responsive. Part of the credit must go to its chief executive Sir Simon Stevens, who has been an outstanding manager of the service since his appointment in 2014.
But it is also striking how several of the key figures in this saga have been outsiders, with experience far beyond the confines ofWhitehall.
Indeed, when the plans were first being developed, the Government was worried that the top ranks of the civil service were not up to the job. “The briefing notes the civil servants were sending in had basic errors in them,” recalls one minister.
FORTUNATELY Kate Bingham, chosen to head the Vaccine Taskforce, is of a much higher calibre.A brilliant science student at Oxford, she had worked for a US biotech firm before becoming a venture capitalist, managing funds worth £730million.
At the Taskforce, her canny judgment and extensive contacts in the pharmaceutical industry were buttressed by freedom from EU regulatory control, so Britain could secure major deals before the vaccines had officially been approved. It is thanks to her leadership that we have 442 million doses in
the pipeline. Other outsiders played a vital role, such as scientists and veterans from the pharmaceutical trade.
Just as important is Brigadier Phil Prosser, commander of the 101 Logistic Brigade, who heads a team of 50 military experts embedded in the NHS HQ. “They use the same principles of logistics that they did in Afghanistan and Iraq. To them there is no such thing as ‘Can’t do it,’” said one official.
But it is also telling that Nadim Zahawi, the Tory minister in charge of the vaccine programme, is very different to most Westminster politicians.
From a refugee Iraqi family that fled Saddam Hussein’s tyranny, Zahawi was an entrepreneur before he entered Parliament in 2010, making a fortune through ventures such as the YouGov polling firm. “He is a born organiser,” says the novelist Jeffrey Archer, who has worked with him in the past.
The lesson of the programme’s success is that our political life needs more achievers from other fields, particularly business. Westminster and Whitehall are far too dominated by identikit mediocrities, whose twin skills are mouthing jargon and working their way up party or bureaucratic hierarchies.
A wider breadth of recruitment would benefit us all.
‘Several of the key figures had experience far beyond Whitehall’
WELCOME once again. It’s nice to be back. I must say, since last week’s column there’s been a lot of bad news about Covid, quarantine, death and destruction. So it was good to have a big story as light relief – yes, I’m talking about the infamous Handforth Parish Council meeting.
I’m sure we’ve all had a good laugh by now, and learned the name of JackieWeaver, the best-known local council officer in the country.
It’s funny stuff. But there is a serious side to it, too. Over all the years I’ve spent as a broadcaster, I’ve interviewed many councillors and attended occasional council meetings. And I have to say that the Handforth experience is not a one-off.
I think we all need to look carefully at our local councils and local politicians as meetings like this put people off. True, most people don’t want to be on their local council and don’t want to stand for election.
But unless we get younger people interested in the future of this country, and a new influx of nimble thinkers, we will end up with the sorts of problems we’ve all experienced and now seen a hint of on the Handforth Zoom.
Councillors arguing about nothing getting done, planning permissions being needlessly turned down and endless arguments about how to spend money.
And all in the main being decided by people who aren’t that dynamic. I’m not saying all councils are full of people like this – but I am saying there are more than you think.
Perhaps it’s our collective fault.We’re too busy to be involved and lots of us say we don’t care about politics.Well we should all care, because politics is real life, and local politicians often have more effect on our lives than the guys in Parliament.
Those who have a bit of life experience and a long working life ahead of them – say, those in their 30s – are exactly the sort of people who should be seeking local election. I know it’s difficult if you’re lucky enough to be working already.
But after looking at that video of Handforth and knowing that kind of behaviour is not uncommon, maybe we should all take more interest in what happens where we live.
We do all have a say – it’s just that an enormous number of us choose to ignore it.