Steve Barclay ‘frustrated health officials by delaying vaccine programme signoff’

Other senior staff allowed rollout to begin 10 days before Treasury's formal green light, new book claims

Steve Barclay frustrated health officials by delaying the Treasury's signoff on the Covid vaccine programme, amid wider hold-ups by the department in approving the financing for the project, a new book about the NHS has claimed.

Barclay, who is now the health secretary, has rejected the claim. But one senior figure in the vaccine programme told journalist Isabel Hardman that Barclay, who was then chief secretary to the Treasury and lead minister on the vaccine taskforce, was a block.