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Sajid Javid has ruled out Tory peer Dido Harding as the next chief executive of NHS England, according to reports.
Baroness Harding, 53, the former head of NHS Test and Trace, was seen as the preferred choice of Matt Hancock, but he was forced to resign as Health Secretary last week.
A senior Government source told The Times last night that while she deserved ‘credit’ for building the Covid-19 testing programme, ‘people don’t think she is the right person to lead the NHS as we enter a new phase’.
The decision to reject her candidacy is one of Mr Javid’s first major decisions since he took over as Health Secretary.
The news comes after well-placed sources said that Amanda Pritchard, the chief operating officer of the NHS, is in prime position to take over from Sir Simon Stevens.
One insider described her as ‘very highly rated’ and said a ‘two-horse race’ between her and Baroness Harding has now just left her in the running.
The former chief executive of TalkTalk had vowed to use her private sector experience, along with her existing links with ministers, if she were to get the NHS role.
There were also fears that her stewardship of the £37billion Test and Trace system would create future political problems for the Government.
It was branded the ‘most wasteful and inept public spending programme of all time’ by the former head of the Treasury.
Sajid Javid has ruled out Tory peer Dido Harding (pictured) as the next chief executive of NHS England, according to reports
The decision over who will be appointed is expected shortly as Sir Simon has ruled out staying in the job beyond the end of July after his seven-year tenure.
Ms Pritchard, previously chief executive of Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Trust, is said to have impressed Ministers as efficient and highly capable.
She has a much lower profile than either Lady Harding or Sir Simon, although it is understood this is seen as a positive attribute.
A source said: ‘She is almost the anti-Simon Stevens.
‘She is the person who delivers quietly rather than making a big song and dance about it.’
Ministers have final sign-off over the appointment.
In a letter to colleagues announcing his resignation, Sir Simon 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.
The decision is expected shortly as Sir Simon Stevens, pictured, has ruled out staying in the job beyond the end of July after his seven-year tenure
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.
Amanda Pritchard, previously chief executive of Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Trust, is said to have impressed Ministers as efficient and highly capable
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.
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.
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