Professor Dame Jenny Harries completed her medical studies at Birmingham University, early hospital medicine rotations in New Zealand and specialist training in Public Health Medicine in Wales. She was successively appointed Director of Public Health in Monmouthshire, Swindon and Norfolk.
She was Regional Director for Public Health for the South of England immediately prior to her appointment in July 2019 as the Deputy Chief Medical Officer for Health Improvement at the Department of Health and Social Care. Here she worked directly with the Department for Work and Pensions before focusing full time on supporting Ministers and the wider health and care system in the response to the COVID-19 pandemic from within the Office of the Chief Medical Officer.
In 2021 she became the founding Chief Executive of the UK Health Security Agency with a remit to protect the nation from external hazards to health having previously played central roles in national incidents, including Ebola, Zika and the Novichok attacks in Salisbury. She stepped down from her CEO role on 31 May as part of a planned healthy retirement.
Dame Jenny has extensive experience in clinical and public health science, research, and academia, as well as in health and care service commissioning. She has worked in policy, evaluation, and clinical roles across multiple countries, including Pakistan, Albania, India, Kenya and Brazil. She has previously served on the UK’s Joint Committee for Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI), the Expert Advisory Group on the NHS Constitution and the Ministerial Women’s Health Task Force. She has delivered frontline disability assessments and as a DPH developed novel workplace health interventions, including FarmWell and FishWell in Norfolk for isolated professional groups.
In addition to a medical degree, she holds formal qualifications in public health, pharmacology, business administration, health economics and strategic health service planning.
