Desmond Swayne Questions Sajid Javid and DHSC Removes Job Advert for Covid Pass Deputy Director
Fri 2:09 pm +01:00, 10 Jun 2022On 21 February Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced the “Living with Covid Strategy.” He confirmed that “domestic legal restrictions will end on 24 February as we begin to treat Covid as other infectious diseases such as flu.”
“From April 1st, we will also no longer recommend the use of voluntary Covid-status certification, although the NHS app will continue to allow people to indicate their vaccination status for international travel,” the Prime Minister said.
However, on 16 April we wrote an article titled ‘Some NHS Trusts Are Still Hiring For “Coronavirus Related” Jobs’ in which we noted that NHS trusts had posted 225 new “coronavirus related” job advertisements within the previous week alone.
And on 15 April Fiona Rose Diamond posted on her Telegram channel that the NHS was advertising for a “Covid Pass Delivery Manager.” She noted that the job advert stated:
“NHS COVID Pass enables citizens to demonstrate their COVID-19 status when travelling abroad or when visiting organisations who have opted to implement a domestic certification process. Since its launch, in May 2021 the service has been used millions of times.”
“We’re growing and have opportunities for Delivery Managers to join our Citizen Health Technology directorate to support the Covid Pass programme.”
Since then, another role was advertised for a “Deputy Director, Delivery Lead Covid Pass.” The advert was posted on the Department of Health & Social Care (“DHSC”) jobs site. One of our readers took a screenshot of the job advert header:
On 8 June, Diamond again alerted her followers through a post on her Telegram channel about this latest “Covid Pass” role and encouraged her followers to “apply” for the job. “I think we should spam the hell out of these tyrannical sh** bags,” she wrote and attached the LINK.
Quoting the advert, Diamond commented that DHSC was looking for someone who will be:
“…a passionate advocate of future-proof technologies and will work with service management and policy colleagues to deliver the Covid Pass Programme, a key strategic priority for DHSC and Her Majesty’s Government (HMG). This is a high profile, complex programme which interacts with other departments, Devolved Administrations and public and private sector stakeholders.”
On the same day in the House of Commons, Desmond Swayne, Member of Parliament (“MP”) for New Forest West, questioned Sajid Javid, MP for Bromsgrove and Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, why DHSC was advertising for a Deputy Director of a Covid Pass.
Below is the video included in Swayne’s tweet above.
On 8 June, according to Diamond’s Telegram post, the job advert was viewable and open for applications. Sometime between then and midnight yesterday the job had been removed from the Civil Service Jobs site.
Does that mean that the lucky applicant who got the “Covid Pass Delivery Manager” job being advertised by the NHS a few weeks ago is now out of a job?
