The secretary of state for health and social care, also referred to as the health secretary, is a secretary of state in the Government of the United Kingdom, responsible for the work of the Department of Health and Social Care. The incumbent is a member of the Cabinet of the United Kingdom.
Alistair James Hendrie Burt is a Conservative British politician who served as Member of Parliament (MP) for North East Bedfordshire from 2001 until 2019. He was previously MP for his native Bury North in Greater Manchester from 1983 until 1997. Burt was Parliamentary Under Secretary of State then Minister of State at the Department of Social Security from 1992 to 1997, and Parliamentary Under Secretary of State at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office from 2010 to 2013. Burt was also Minister of State at the Department of Health from May 2015 to July 2016.
Helen Mary Jones is a British Labour politician who was the Member of Parliament (MP) for Warrington North from 1997 to 2019.
David John Mowat is a former Conservative Party politician in the United Kingdom. He was the Member of Parliament (MP) for Warrington South, and was first elected at the 2010 general election. He was appointed as Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Care and Support at the Department of Health in July 2016. He lost the seat to Labour at the 2017 election.
Stephen Paul Barclay is a British politician who served in various cabinet positions under prime ministers Theresa May, Boris Johnson and Rishi Sunak between 2018 and 2024, lastly as the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs from 2023 to 2024. A member of the Conservative Party, he has been Member of Parliament (MP) for North East Cambridgeshire since 2010 and Shadow Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs since July 2024.
Caroline Julia Dinenage, Baroness Lancaster of Kimbolton,, also styled as Dame Caroline Dinenage, is a British Conservative Party politician who has been the Member of Parliament (MP) for Gosport since 2010.
Neil John O'Brien is a British Conservative Party politician who has been the Member of Parliament (MP) for Harborough, Oadby and Wigston, previously Harborough, since 2017. He was the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Primary Care and Public Health from September 2022 to November 2023. He was previously a special adviser to Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne from 2012 to 2016 and Theresa May during her tenure as Prime Minister.
Helen Olivia Bicknell Whately is a British Conservative Party politician who has been Member of Parliament (MP) for Faversham and Mid Kent since 2015 and Shadow Secretary of State for Transport since July 2024. She served as Minister of State for Social Care from October 2022 to July 2024, and previously from 2020 to 2021. She also served as Exchequer Secretary to the Treasury from 2021 to 2022.
William James Quince is a British Conservative Party politician and former lawyer who served as Member of Parliament (MP) for Colchester from 2015 to 2024. Quince was also Minister of State for Health and Secondary Care from September 2022 to November 2023.
Margaret Ann Throup is a British Conservative Party politician who served as the Member of Parliament (MP) for Erewash in Derbyshire from the 2015 general election to the 2024 general election. Prior to entering politics, Throup worked as a biomedical scientist and business consultant.
Gillian Keegan is a British politician who served as Secretary of State for Education from 2022 to 2024. She previously served as Minister of State for Care and Mental Health from 2021 to 2022, and Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Africa from September to October 2022. A member of the Conservative Party, Keegan served as the Member of Parliament (MP) for Chichester from 2017 to 2024.
Theresa May carried out the first reshuffle of her minority government in January 2018. Following the resignation of her deputy, Damian Green as First Secretary of State in December 2017, the reshuffle had been highly anticipated and briefed in the press. There were reports of "up to a quarter" of her cabinet ministers who might lose their positions, including Boris Johnson, who had been seen to cause a number of political gaffes during his term as Foreign Secretary. The reshuffle was seen as an opportunity for May to reassert authority, greatly diminished following the result of the snap general election the previous year. Despite being described by 10 Downing Street as a chance to "refresh" the Cabinet, few changes were made to the ministerial line-up. On 9 January, newspaper headlines reflected the chaotic nature of May's reshuffle, with The Daily Telegraph describing it as, "The Night of the Blunt Stiletto", a reference to the 1962 reshuffle carried out by Harold Macmillan.
James Nicholas Bethell, 5th Baron Bethell is a British hereditary peer and Conservative politician in the House of Lords. During the COVID-19 pandemic, he was Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Innovation at the Department of Health and Social Care and was involved in negotiating various controversial contracts.
The second Johnson ministry began on 16 December 2019, three days after Boris Johnson's audience with Queen Elizabeth II where she invited him to form a new government following the 2019 general election. The Conservative Party was returned to power with a majority of 80 seats in the House of Commons. Initially the ministers were largely identical to those at the end of the first Johnson ministry, but changed significantly in cabinet reshuffles in February 2020 and September 2021.
The Vaccine Taskforce in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland was set up in April 2020 by the Second Johnson ministry, in collaboration with Chief Scientific Advisor Patrick Vallance and Chief Medical Officer Professor Chris Whitty, in order to facilitate the path towards the introduction of a COVID-19 vaccine in the UK and its global distribution. The taskforce coordinated the research efforts of government with industry, academics and funding agencies in order to expedite vaccine development and deployment.
The Joint Biosecurity Centre (JBC) is a scientific body which seeks to advise United Kingdom government policy as part of the response to outbreaks of COVID-19, such as on testing deployment, international travel, and the UK 'COVID-19 alert level'. Its existence was announced by Prime Minister Boris Johnson in May 2020. The body has been part of the UK Health Security Agency since the establishment of that agency on 1 April 2021.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Mental Health and Women's Health Strategy is a ministerial position within the Government of the United Kingdom, in charge of mental health and women's health policy.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Public Health and Prevention is a position in the Department of Health and Social Care in the Government of the United Kingdom. The role has previously been known as the Minister of State for Public Health.
The following is a timeline of the COVID-19 pandemic in the United Kingdom from January to June 2022.
The Minister of State for Care and Mental Health was a ministerial position within the Government of the United Kingdom, in charge of mental health and social care policy.
