Sir Paul Cosford | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Born | 20 May 1963 Thornbury, Gloucestershire, England |
| Died | 5 April 2021 (aged 57) |
| Education | |
| Occupations | |
| Years active | 1987 - 2021 |
| Known for | UK public health response to:
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| Relatives | Gillian Leng (wife) |
| Medical career | |
| Profession | Physician |
| Field | Public health |
| Institutions | |
Sir Paul Anthony Cosford KCB (20 May 1963 – 5 April 2021) was a British emeritus medical director at Public Health England (PHE), the UK's public health agency, later replaced by the UK Health Security Agency. He had executive roles from 2010 at PHE's predecessor, the Health Protection Agency. From April 2013 to 2019 he was PHE's Medical Director and Director for Health Protection, making him responsible for advising on services to prevent and control infectious diseases and for preparations and responses to public health emergencies. He led the MMR vaccine catch-up campaign in response to the resurgence of measles following the MMR Scare, and contributed to the response to the 2014 Ebola outbreak, the Grenfell disaster in 2017, and the 2018 Novichok poisonings in Salisbury and Amesbury. Over the course of his career in public health he led programmes to reduce hospital-acquired infections and tuberculosis, and oversaw ways of dealing with health inequalities, tobacco, obesity, and responses to pandemic flu.
Earlier in his career he moved to North West London to train in psychiatry and in 1990 was appointed lecturer in psychiatry at St Mary's Hospital Medical School. He worked with people with learning difficulties and severe mental illness, and wrote on eating disorders in the elderly. He then transferred to public health and held posts in Hertfordshire and Bedfordshire, and later became director of public health with the Leicestershire, Northamptonshire, and Rutland Area Health Authority. In 2006, the year before he co-authored his Cochrane review on screening for abdominal aortic aneurysms (AAA), he was appointed Regional Director of Public Health for the East of England, which he served until 2010.
In 2017 Cosford was diagnosed with advanced lung cancer, which obliged him to step down from his role as director for PHE in 2019. That year, he was lead author of a paper discussing lung cancer in people who had, like himself, never smoked. He subsequently wrote an essay, in which he called for policies on assisted dying to be reviewed. In 2020, in his emeritus role, he reported frequently on the COVID-19 pandemic and continued to work while self-isolating during the early COVID-19 lockdowns.
For his services to public health, Cosford was appointed CB in 2016 and KCB in 2021.