Professor Sir Jonathan Van-Tam
Prof. Sir Jonathan Van-Tam was Deputy Chief Medical Officer from 2017-2022, making him one of the country’s most senior medical advisors during the COVID-19 pandemic. He took to the podium at the historic, televised COVID press briefings and quickly became known in households up and down the country for his leadership, particularly his straight, no-nonsense, communication style. His colourful analogies helped us make sense of the ever-changing complexities we faced as a nation (and of his best are at the bottom of the article).
At Safety & Health Expo he will discuss crisis response during the pandemic, drawing on parallels between his role and that of health & safety professionals. He will explain how he simplified complex messages to influence safe attitudes & behaviour. He will discuss staying calm under the pressure of crisis and responding to difficult lines of questioning. And he will talk about stakeholder management with leadership.
Following the presentation, Jonathan will welcome questions during an audience Q&A.
When & where: Wednesday 17th May 2023, 11.30am, SHP Keynote Theatre, sponsored by IOSH, Safety & Health Expo, ExCel, London.
Prof. Sir Jonathan Van-Tam Jonathan Van-Tam Kt, MBE, FMedSci, is a public health specialist with a clinical background in emergency medicine, anaesthesia and infectious diseases. He is an expert on respiratory viruses and pandemics and currently Pro Vice-Chancellor, Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences, University of Nottingham. His career has also taken him to Public Health England, the World Health Organization, and the pharmaceutical and vaccine industries.
He received a knighthood from Her Majesty the Queen in her 2022 New Year’s Honours List, for services to public health. Although he couldn’t collect the knighthood in person because he was isolating with COVID-19 at the time of the investiture ceremony.
He has recently been awarded the Royal Society’s Attenborough Award and Lecture 2022, for outstanding public engagement in science.
Safety & Health Expo will take place from 16th – 18th May at the ExCel, London. It is powered by SHP and is the UK’s largest dedicated event for health & safety professionals. It is free to attend and co-located with IFSEC, FIREX and Facilities Show.
The Keynote Theatre at the event has a history of welcoming high-profile speakers. Inspirational speakers from previous years have included Louis Theroux, Dame Kelly Holmes, Kate Adie, Professor Brian Cox, Baroness Karren Brady, Sir Chris Hoy, Steph McGovern, Ruby Wax and Jonny Wilkinson.
More information, including visitor registration here.
“This to me is like a train journey, where you’re standing on the station. It’s wet, it’s windy, it’s horrible. And two miles down the tracks two lights appear and it’s the train and it’s a long way off. And we’re at that point at the moment. Then we hope the train slows down, safely, to get into the station. And then the train stops and at that point the doors don’t open. The guard has to make sure it’s safe to open the doors. And when the doors open I hope there’s not an unholy scramble for the seats. The JCVI has very clearly said which people are going to need the seats most and they are the ones who should get on the train first.”
“This is like getting to the end of a play-off final, it’s gone to penalties, the first player goes up and scores a goal. You haven’t won the cup yet, but what it does is it tells you that the goalkeeper can be beaten.”
“It’s brilliant news. It’s the second penalty now, that’s also gone into the back of the net. So we’re starting to feel in a better position.”
“This whole concept is a bit like a hose pipe in your garden wit a tap at one end and when you turn that tap off water still comes out the hose pipe for a few seconds before it dies down.”
“Follow the guidance. Don’t tear the pants off it. And don’t go further than the guidance actually says.”
“This is a complex product with a very fragile culture. It’s not a yoghurt that can be taken out of the fridge and put back in multiple times”
“It’s like having a spring in a box and you’ve got the lid on. Now you can take the lid off a little but you haven’t disconnected the spring or broken the spring in any way. If you take the lid right off the spring, still under tension, off it will go again.”
“Do I believe that we are now on the glide path to landing this plane? Yes, I think I do. Do I accept that sometimes when you’re on a glide path you can have a side wind and that the landing is not totally straightforward, totally textbook? Of course. And this is the real science world that we live in.”
“It’s clear in the first half, the away team gave us an absolute battering, and what we’ve done now is it’s the 70th minute, they got a goal, and in the 70th minute we’ve now got an equaliser. Okay, we’ve got to hold our nerve now, see if we can get another goal and nick it. But the key thing is not to lose it, not to throw it away at this point because we’ve got a point on the board, and we’ve got the draw.”
“Jumping into a pond with one shark in it or jumping into a pond with 100 sharks in it, it changes the likelihood that you’re going to get bitten.”
Listen to more of Prof. Sir Jonathan Van-Tam’s quotes here
