Dido Harding ‘vows to end NHS reliance on foreign doctors and nurses’ if she becomes head of the health service despite bungling Test & Trace system

Dido Harding is vowing to end the NHS’s reliance on foreign doctors and nurses if she becomes head of the health service in England – despite Matt Hancock previously urging a ‘new Windrush generation’ to help fill jobs.

The Tory peer has made ending the ‘prevailing orthodoxy’ that staff are better sourced from abroad part of her pitch to take over from Sir Simon Stevens next month.

However, two years ago Lady Harding penned a report admitting that the NHS must ‘increase international recruitment in the short to medium term’.

And launching that report Mr Hancock said: ‘The people plan spells out how we need a new Windrush Generation for the NHS.

‘A recruitment drive to attract the brightest and best doctors, nurses, and clinical staff from overseas.’ 

It was confirmed last week that Baroness Harding, former head of the much-criticised Test and Trace programme, has applied for the key post. 

The former Talk-Talk chief would become the first woman to hold the role – but she would also be a hugely controversial choice amid criticism of the contact tracing scheme.

In March, the former head of the Treasury branded the £37billion system the ‘most wasteful and inept public spending programme of all time’.

Lady Harding is expected to tell the NHS panel that she can be an ‘insider outsider’ to bring fresh ideas to the health service, according to the Sunday Times. 

Around 14 per cent of the NHS workforce are non-British nationals, and it has been seen as cheaper to recruit from abroad rather than train people up in this country.

She is expected to say she will resign from the Tory party and take a leave of absence from the Lords if her application is successful. 

Dido Harding (left) is said to have made ending the ‘prevailing orthodoxy’ that staff are better sourced from abroad part of her pitch to take over from Sir Simon Stevens (right) next month

The former Talk-Talk chief would become the first woman head of NHS England if her application is successful

WHO ELSE IS IN THE RUNNING FOR NHS ENGLAND JOB?

Amanda Pritchard

NHS England chief operating officer

The current holder of the NHS’s number two job is many people’s favourite to succeed Sir Simon Stevens as chief executive of NHS England.

The daughter of a bishop, Ms Pritchard grew up in Durham and went to Oxford University before spending her entire 25-year career in the NHS. 

Emily Lawson

Former NHS England chief commercial officer

Emily Lawson is the incoming head of the No10 delivery unit after leaving her post as NHS England chief commercial officer.

She has been discussed as an interim leader for NHS England between Sir Simon’s departure in July and her start at the delivery unit.

Trade magazine HSJ has credited her as one of the outside bets. 

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The interim NHS People Plan – drawn up by Lady Harding in her role as chair of NHS Improvement and published in June 2019 – said:   

‘Since the inception of the NHS, our patients have benefited from the skill, compassion and commitment of international nurses.

‘In the short to medium term, given existing vacancy rates and the lead times for training new nurses, we will need to increase international recruitment significantly to secure rapid increases in supply.’

However, the report did add: ‘Our ambition must be to drive towards a supply balance for nursing that meets the demands of health and care services, centred on a domestically grown workforce.’ 

Shadow health secretary Jon Ashworth has written to Cabinet Secretary Simon Case urging him to ensure ‘transparency’ in the appointment process and that there is no ‘political influence’. 

‘The NHS needs a chief executive with a proven track record of delivering quality care and who will never fail to champion a public universal NHS, stand up to Rishi Sunak and secure crucial extra investment,’ he said.

‘This is one of the biggest health care jobs in the world, patients expect the appointment to be made transparency and on the basis of merit.’

Last year Boris Johnson faced calls to sack Lady Harding and replace her over the continued poor performance of what was meant to be a ‘world-beating’ system.

According to a biography on the NHS England website, Lady Harding, 53, whose husband is a Tory MP, has stepped down as chair of NHS Improvement during the recruitment process.

She has held that position since October 2017 and her career includes top roles at Talk-Talk, Thomas Cook, Woolworths and Tesco.

As well as Lady Harding, NHS England’s chief operating officer Amanda Pritchard is one of the favourites to succeed Sir Simon.

The updated biography on the NHS England website states: ‘Dido has applied to become the next CEO of the NHS and has therefore stood aside as Chair of NHS Improvement whilst the recruitment process takes place. Sir Andrew Morris is standing in for her during this time.’

NHS England announced in April that current NHS chief executive Sir Simon was to stand down ‘as planned’ at the end of July to become a crossbench peer in the House of Lords. 

In a letter to colleagues, he described being in charge of the NHS through ‘some of the toughest challenges in its history’ as a privilege. 

Sir Simon — who has been in charge for seven years — has served through three elections and the Covid pandemic.  

According to the NHS England annual report for 2019/20, the chief executive’s salary was between £195,000 and £200,000.

The report stated that Sir Simon had, during that year, voluntarily taken a £20,000 annual pay cut for the sixth year in a row. 

Lady Harding was heavily criticised during her stint in charge of the country’s contact tracing programme. 

A report earlier this year said T&T had ‘minimal impact on transmission’ despite receiving £37billion of funding.

The Commons Public Accounts Committee said in March there was no evidence the tracing scheme had made a dent in Covid transmission, despite its ‘unimaginable’ budget.

Last year No10 spent £22billion on Test and Trace and the Chancellor promised to throw another £15billion at it in 2021, bringing the total cost to £37billion.

The PAC report said the Government was treating British taxpayers ‘like an ATM machine’.

Sir Nicholas Macpherson, a member of the House of Lords and former permanent secretary at the Treasury, also waded into the row. 

He posted a cutting tweet that added: ‘The extraordinary thing is that nobody in the government seems surprised or shocked. No matter: the BoE will just print more money.’

Lady Harding’s leadership of Test and Trace last year prompted senior backbencher Sir Bernard Jenkin, chairman of the Liaison Committee, to join Labour in suggesting she be replaced.

At one point in October last year, ahead of the second lockdown which came in in November, the system hit a record low with just 59.6 per cent of the contacts of people who tested positive for the disease being successfully contacted and told to self-isolate.

Sir Bernard, who chairs the Liaison Committee of senior MPs which questions the Prime Minister twice a year, said the peer should be given a ‘well-earned break’ so she and others could ‘reflect on the lessons learned so far’.

Last September she was ridiculed when she claimed nobody was ‘expecting’ to see the ‘really sizeable increase in demand’ for Covid checks ahead of the start of the school year.

Lady Harding’s comments, which come despite the return of schools and more people heading back to work, sparked outrage as she told MPs ‘none of the modelling’ had suggested there would be such a steep uptick in requests.

She blamed the Government’s Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (SAGE) for seemingly getting its predictions wrong as she said testing capacity had been built based on the panel’s recommendations.

Lady Harding studied Policy, Politics and Economics at Oxford University, alongside David Cameron, and is married to John Penrose, Conservative MP for Weston-super-Mare (pictured together)

There were also numerous reports of staff at deserted walk-in testing centres turning people away if they didn’t have an appointment or weren’t showing obvious coronavirus symptoms. 

Baroness Harding was appointed CEO of TalkTalk in 2010, serving in the role for seven years, during which the company was the victim of a cyber attack that saw the personal and banking details of 157,000 customers accessed by hackers.

She was subjected to repeated blackmail attempts after the hack, with demands for Bitcoins in exchange for stolen data, which included customers’ names, email addresses, mobile numbers, home addresses and dates of birth.

In the aftermath, TalkTalk was fined a record £400,000 for security failings which allowed the data to be accessed ‘with ease’ in one of the biggest data breaches in history.

TalkTalk is thought to have lost £60million from the fallout with an estimated 100,000 angry customers leaving, mainly to BT, while 2015 profits halved to £14million and shares lost nearly two-thirds of their value.

Baroness Harding faced repeated calls to step down over the breach, but stayed on until 2017, when she resigned to focus on her ‘public service activities’.  

Later that year, she was appointed chair of NHS Improvement, responsible for overseeing all NHS hospitals.

Ex-jockey and Talk Talk boss whose management of Test and Trace led to resignation demands 

Baroness Dido Harding of Winscombe, 53, was raised on a Somerset pig farm and is the granddaughter of Field Marshall Lord Harding, the commander of the Desert Rats who became the most senior soldier in the British army.

A former jockey, she studied Policy, Politics and Economics at Oxford University, alongside David Cameron, and is the wife of John Penrose, the Conservative MP for Weston-super-Mare.

Upon graduating, she held a slew of roles at Thomas Cook, Woolworths, Tesco and Sainsbury’s.

Baroness Harding was appointed CEO of TalkTalk in 2010, serving in the role for seven years, during which the company was the victim of a cyber attack that saw the personal and banking details of 157,000 customers accessed by hackers.

She was subjected to repeated blackmail attempts after the hack, with demands for Bitcoins in exchange for stolen data, which included customers’ names, email addresses, mobile numbers, home addresses and dates of birth.

In the aftermath, TalkTalk was fined a record £400,000 for security failings which allowed the data to be accessed ‘with ease’ in one of the biggest data breaches in history.

TalkTalk is thought to have lost £60million from the fallout with an estimated 100,000 angry customers leaving, mainly to BT, while 2015 profits halved to £14million and shares lost nearly two-thirds of their value.

Baroness Harding faced repeated calls to step down over the breach, but stayed on until 2017, when she resigned to focus on her ‘public service activities’.

Later that year, she was appointed chair of NHS Improvement, responsible for overseeing all NHS hospitals. 

Baroness Harding has also packed in a career as a jockey, which saw her appear at Cheltenham, Ascot and even the towering Grand National jumps at Aintree.

One particularly nasty crash over the sticks at Larkhill left her strapped to a spinal board – though she still managed to catch a flight to a conference in Thailand the next day.

But, aged 24, she made a rash promise to her husband – she would give it all up at 40.

When the date came Penrose, who had not forgotten, made it clear breaching the bargain was a deal-breaker for the marriage.

Harding obliged, though does still race without jumps.

‘I miss the racing hugely,’ she previously admitted. ‘If you told me I could go off and do it tomorrow afternoon I would. For me that’s always been my way of shutting everything off and relaxing.’

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