Press release

Senior civil servant and former lecturer in medical statistics appointed to Joint Biosecurity Centre

Dr Clare Gardiner has been seconded to the role of Director General of the Joint Biosecurity Centre (JBC) at DHSC to take it through to full operating capability. 

The JBC brings together the UK’s leading data analysis and epidemiological expertise with the aim of ensuring that outbreaks of coronavirus (COVID-19) are detected and brought under control quickly.

By combining multiple and new data feeds, the JBC is responsible for providing a single authoritative information picture to local, regional and national decision makers to help them respond rapidly to any outbreak. It’s building on the UK’s existing public health infrastructure and surveillance network, drawing on expertise from across government, industry and academia.

The JBC is also responsible for advising on the new COVID-19 Alert Level, collecting, collating and analysing data in order to provide a recommendation to the chief medical officers across the UK of the current level.

Currently Director of National Resilience and Strategy at the National Cyber Security Centre, Dr Gardiner has extensive experience in government as well as an academic and research background in medical statistics and epidemiology. 

She is well placed to build on the initial operating capability of the JBC already delivered thanks to the temporary head of the unit, Tom Hurd. The JBC is expected to reach full operating capacity later this summer.

The JBC is part of the NHS Test and Trace service which is led by Executive Chair Baroness Dido Harding in DHSC.

Published 5 June 2020