MPs criticise ‘staggering’ failures at UK Health Security Agency

Damning report highlights lack of spending controls and no stockpile plan for future pandemic at flagship agency set up under Boris Johnson

Britain’s lead public health body has a staggering lack of control over billions of pounds of spending, and there is no plan for stockpiling vaccines or personal protective equipment (PPE) for a future pandemic, a damning MPs’ report has found.

The public accounts committee was highly critical of the repeated governance and financial failings at the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA), which was set up with great fanfare under Boris Johnson.

Meg Hillier, the committee chair, said it would be “utterly inexcusable” for the government to have failed to make serious preparations for future health emergencies and warned the lack of a plan for stockpiling could leave health workers once again exposed to danger as they were in 2020.

The committee lambasted the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC), which oversees UKHSA, for lacking a strategy for reserves of PPE, vaccines and medicines despite its mandate to protect the country’s health security.

The MPs were particularly critical of the decision for it to be led by Prof Dame Jenny Harries, a former deputy chief medical officer for England, saying she was “appointed into a role, as accounting officer and chief executive, of which she had no previous experience”.

Opposition parties described the situation as an “utter shambles” and called on Steve Barclay, the health secretary, to explain to parliament what was being done to overhaul the organisation.

There are wider concerns about the unprecedented pressure on and vulnerability of the NHS, which marks its 75th anniversary on Wednesday. While waiting lists continue to rise, the health service is also facing strikes from junior doctors and consultants later this month.

Prof Philip Banfield, the leader of the British Medical Association, warned on Tuesday that most frontline medics believed ministers were seeking to “destroy the NHS” because they have starved it of cash and mistreated its staff.