The significance of well being safety science to society has by no means been extra obvious.
It’s a troublesome job to guard well being from infectious ailments and environmental hazards in an period of accelerating danger of pandemics and different severe threats to well being, however science is a strong pressure to know and sort out these challenges.
The excellent news is that we’ve by no means had higher instruments to safe well being than we do in the present day, with much more thrilling developments coming.
We noticed the artwork of the attainable throughout the COVID-19 pandemic with genomic knowledge permitting the fast identification and characterisation of variants enabling fast growth and analysis of diagnostics, vaccines and therapeutics.
The world had by no means seen such a fast development and deployment of protected and efficient vaccines which saved hundreds of thousands of lives permitting us to return to better normality.
Past COVID-19, we all know that science will assist us to safe well being from different present and future challenges.
Our local weather is altering, which can exacerbate a variety of threats together with the chance of different pandemics. Hazards like air air pollution and antimicrobial resistance price many lives and enhance the burden on our already stretched NHS.
So the higher we’re at making use of our scientific abilities to guard individuals from well being threats, the simpler we will probably be at holding society transferring and lowering stress on very important public providers.
And we should not overlook that science additionally creates many thrilling profession alternatives and drives innovation making an essential contribution to our nation’s prosperity.
A brand new science technique for UKHSA
At UKHSA science powers every part we accomplish that I’m delighted to announce the publication of a new science strategy setting out how we’ll harness the facility of our science to safe well being and prosperity over the subsequent decade.
The technique highlights how UKHSA’s science can save extra lives, safe main public well being victories and contribute to the UK as a worldwide science superpower.
Via our science we will obtain nice issues, however we will’t do it alone.
The pandemic demonstrated what might be achieved when Authorities, business, and academia work collectively, so our technique is targeted on constructing deeper and stronger partnerships. We wish to preserve the spirit of collaboration and momentum from the previous few years to sort out all well being threats.
In addition to investing in our partnerships, to make our imaginative and prescient a actuality we may even spend money on our individuals and amenities because the foundations of our science.
The science technique is a crucial companion piece to UKHSA’s strategic plan which will probably be revealed later this yr to supply extra data on our organisational priorities.
UKHSA is a novel organisation. After I speak to individuals about our science, I’m extraordinarily proud to spotlight among the distinctive work that we do and our capabilities.
This consists of our means to mix science with our experience in operational response and knowledge analytics.
Or our uncommon and distinctive experience and capabilities in excessive containment, dealing with the world’s most harmful pathogens, via to our end-to-end vaccine functionality from vaccine growth science to experience in procurement and logistics.
Our science is extremely various. We’re knowledge scientists, microbiologists, epidemiologists, toxicologists, medical entomologists, radiation safety specialists, medics, nurses, geographers, modellers, bioinformaticians, chemists, behavioural scientists, biomedical scientists, biologists, engineers and extra.
And I’m significantly proud that our science is all the time targeted on actual world motion. The data and proof that we generate is straight used to guard well being and in scientific follow, on the NHS entrance line and in our communities.
It additionally informs the strategic coverage recommendation we offer to the best ranges of presidency.
Certainly, the scientific proof we generate is used all over the world due to its high quality.
Be a part of us in our work to safe well being and prosperity
Our new technique units out our ambition to play a better function than ever in life sciences, nationally and internationally.
In creating our science technique we’ve engaged a variety of companions, most just lately internet hosting a profitable business engagement occasion at our Porton Down campus.
We’re open for enterprise and wish to work with companions on shared agendas to guard the general public’s well being.
Over the approaching months and years, we’ll develop longer-term strategic partnerships with academia, business, the NHS and fellow public sector analysis institutions who share our imaginative and prescient.
Our technique additionally reinforces the significance of our individuals. We do incredible science right here and we would like UKHSA to be the perfect place on the planet to work as a scientist so we have to retain, appeal to and develop the scientific leaders and workforce of the long run.
This implies constructing a thriving multidisciplinary neighborhood of scientists with entry to the perfect amenities, sources, prime quality knowledge and expertise that assist them make essential scientific advances.
Please do check out our new strategy on GOV.UK. If you happen to share our ambition to guard well being, save extra lives and increase the nation’s prosperity via science, we stay up for working with you.