BLAME GAME WHERE DOES RESPONSIBILITY LIE FOR PANDEMIC RESPONSE?
PROF DAME SALLY DAVIES
Chief medical officer for England, 2011 to 2019 Dame Sally took over as chief medical officer three years after the swine flu pandemic, for which her predecessor took considerable flack for having “overreacted to”. Rather than double down on pandemic preparedness as some colleagues advised, she focused instead on obesity and the equally troubling epidemic in antimicrobial resistance. The Department of Health’s updated pandemic strategy was signed off on her watch.
GEORGE OSBORNE
Chancellor of the exchequer, 2010 to 20 2016 George Osborne protected the NHS but bu oversaw swingeing cuts c to public health, both centrally and at local authority level across acros the country.
Mr Osborne also championed a policy of efficiency over resilience at the Treasury.
Critics say this left Britain with too little capacity when the pandemic hit.
But his admirers sa say that he had no option but to slash public spending in the wake wak of the financial financ crash back in 200 2008.
DUNCAN SELBIE
Chief executive of Public Health England The senior NHS manager who took on the unenviable challenge of pulling together all England’s public health functions under the umbrella of PHE when it was set up in 2013. Quietly spoken and not fond of the limelight, he is in many ways the perfect pandemic fall guy. Yesterday he noted that “the Department of Health and Social Care leads on all aspects of pandemic planning and preparedness, not Public Health England”. And that is fact.
JEREMY HUNT
Secretary of state fo for health, 2012 to 2018 Mr Hunt was minis minister for health through throughout the period in the ru run-up to the pandemic. H He has not been shy in asking ask sharp questions of ministers, includin including the Prime Minister. He is the chief proponen proponent of the “we were planning plann for flu” defence, although in one rec recent exchange over testing test capacity, Boris Joh Johnson responded: “I think the brutal reality, Jeremy, is th that this countr country did not learn t the lessons of Sars or Mers. A And we didn’ didn’t have a t test operati operation ready t to go on th the scale we nee needed. We now ha have th that.”