Head of the Emergency Response Department & Deputy Director of the Health Protection Directorate at Public Health England

Management and Support

Public Health England

John Simpson is Medical Director, Emergency Preparedness, Resilience and Response EPRR (0.6 wte), having before semi-retirement been Director, EPRR and a Deputy Director of the Health Protection Directorate at Public Health England (PHE).

Formerly a Consultant Regional Epidemiologist with the Communicable Disease Surveillance Centre, he graduated in Medicine from University College, London. He has wide interest and expertise in Chemical/Biological deliberate release and is a WHO advisor on Emergency planning and Bio-terrorism preparedness and is part of WHO Collaborating Centres on Mass Gatherings and Extreme events and Chemical Incidents.

In his present post John co-ordinates the medical advice regarding the emergency response of UKHSA and leads on the provision of specialist advice on Emergency Planning, Resilience and Response (EPRR) and CBRN, including advice to law enforcement. John continues to be involved in multi-agency response and preparedness policy development in the UK. He the UKHSA lead on the NIHR EPR HPRU. He also holds a Visiting Chair at King’s College London. Between 2016-2018 he also served 0.4 wte as Medical Director for the UK Emergency Medical Team project.