Responsibility for the Vaccine Taskforce is to move
jointly to the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) and the
Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS).
Now the national vaccine rollout is well underway, cabinet-level
ministerial responsibility will move from the Business Secretary
to the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, allowing
for end-to-end oversight of the programme to sit with a single
minister. The change will further strengthen relationships with
the therapeutics taskforce and with other vaccination policies
and programmes.
will remain in his role across the 2 departments,
having been appointed Vaccines Minister in December.
Established within BEIS last April, the Vaccine Taskforce
prepared the way for the UK’s hugely successful start to its
vaccination rollout. Last month the government hit its target of
offering a vaccine to everyone in the top 4 priority groups by
mid-February, with more than 20 million people now having had
their first jab.
The taskforce’s role will remain unchanged, supporting efforts to
develop and procure COVID-19 vaccines by providing industry and
research institutions with the resources and support needed.
Through the Vaccine Taskforce, the UK moved quickly to secure
early access to 457 million doses of 8 of the world’s most
promising vaccines so far. To date, the UK government has
invested over £300 million into manufacturing a successful
vaccine, with facilities across the UK working at pace to supply
the biggest vaccination programme in NHS history.
The UK was the first country in the world to procure, authorise
and then deploy both the Oxford/AstraZeneca and Pfizer/BioNTech
vaccines. The deals in place with vaccine developers will ensure
that supply continues to grow so the rollout can expand in the
weeks ahead.
The new structure is similar to that in place for the Office for
Life Sciences, which is also a joint BEIS–DHSC unit. Arrangements
for staff in the taskforce will remain in place.
Media queries related to vaccine supply, as well as deployment,
will now be led by the Department of Health and Social Care:
pressofficenewsdesk@dhsc.gov.uk.
