NEWS
Joint executive team appointed at DHSC and NHSE
A single joint executive team is to be established at the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) and NHS England as part of the transition to one organisation. It will provide unified leadership across both organisations, bringing policy and delivery together. The team will manage directors from related work areas from 3 November 2025 and will begin to combine resources. In March, the Prime Minister announced NHS England would be brought back into DHSC to end the duplication resulting from two organisations doing the same job in a system currently
holding staff back from delivering for patients. By stripping back layers of red tape and bureaucracy, more resources will be put back into the frontline rather than being spent on unnecessary admin. The single joint executive team will comprise: Samantha Jones, DHSC Permanent Secretary; Jim Mackey, CEO of NHS England; Professor Chris Whitty – Chief Medical Officer; Tom Riordan – Chief Operating Officer/Second Permanent Secretary; Matthew Style – Director General, System Development; Duncan Burton – Chief Nursing Officer for England; Catherine Frances – Director General, Global, Public Health and Emergencies; Professor Lucy Chappell – Chief Scientific Adviser and Director General, Science and Research. There are also a number of Interim
Director Generals in place, covering job roles until final recruitment has been finalised. Joint regional teams are also being established to serve as the delivery arm of the centre, driving improvement and performance locally. Existing DHSC Regional Public Health Directors will begin to report into new Regional Directors in the same area from 3 November, subject to appropriate consultation, while continuing to work with the Director General of Public Health and Emergencies. National Priority Programmes are also being set up to drive delivery of the government’s key health priorities, drawing together teams and expertise from across the organisations and the country.
8
Launch of first UK-wide birth cohort study in 25 years
A ground-breaking UK-wide scientific study will help improve the lives of future generations by studying 30,000 children born in 2026. The ‘Generation New Era’ birth cohort study will create a comprehensive picture of early childhood in all four nations of the UK.
The study will be funded by £42.8 million
from the UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) Infrastructure Fund and the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC). It is the first new UK-wide longitudinal birth cohort study in 25 years and follows the Government’s ‘Giving every child the best start in life’ policy paper, which was published earlier this year.
UK Science Minister Lord Vallance said: “This study will help us understand what childhood is like in 21st Century Britain. The results will help us focus on the best interests of newborns across the UK as we deliver our Plan for Change, breaking down the barriers to opportunities by revamping our education systems, healthcare facilities, and more.”
Generation New Era is part of a long UK tradition of research council-funded longitudinal birth cohort studies. These
studies have followed the lives of tens of thousands of people over the past eight decades and led to significant medical and policy impacts. These studies have shaped the thinking of successive governments, informing a raft of important policies to improve the provision of services for early years, health, education and employment. Generation New Era will be jointly led by Co-Directors Professor Alissa Goodman and Professor Lisa Calderwood of the University College London (UCL) Centre for Longitudinal Studies (CLS) and Professor Pasco Fearon of the University of Cambridge. It will collect data at two key developmental stages, between nine to 11 months and again at three to four years, providing crucial insights before children enter formal education. The research will examine physical, mental and social development, and explore how technological, environmental and social changes affect early childhood experiences. The intention is that Generation New Era will track these children and their families throughout their lives. It aims to recruit 30,000 children and families from across the UK, inviting over 60,000 to participate.
Booking open for next Point-of-care Testing Innovators event in London
Tickets are now available for ‘The Power to Disrupt Through Diagnostics’ the next POCT Innovators one-day conference, which takes place Monday 15 December at London’s National Army Museum. This new national clinical diagnostics event is POCT Innovators’ 11th face-to-face conference, with the programme including high-profile individuals who hold influential roles across the NHS and diagnostics sector of healthcare. The event will cover topics which will inform the direction of travel for healthcare in a transformed NHS and diagnostics landscape. Venue is the National Army Museum in the Chelsea district of London: Royal Hospital Rd, London SW3 4HT.
Subjects included on the meeting
agenda are: The Ten-Year Health Plan: system leadership and the role of diagnostics; Neighbourhood health centres; Transforming commissioning through rapid diagnostics; Innovation
and equity: diagnostic access for all; and Translating innovation into practice. Tickets are free to NHS employees, public sector workers and academics, but places are limited due to the venue size. Commercial tickets are currently available at an early-bird rate of £149 (rising to £249). To see the full agenda and register to attend, visit the website at www.
POCTInnovators.com.
OCTOBER 2025
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