Christine McLaughlin

Christine is a senior civil servant in the Scottish Government who began her career in the NHS as a finance trainee in Glasgow Royal Infirmary and has held a variety of roles in public sector consulting, before joining the civil service.  Christine was Chief Finance Officer for DG Health and Care before taking a career break in December 2019.  She returned just 3 months later to contribute to the Covid-19 response, taking on the role of Director of Finance for NHS Louisa Jordan – a 1,000 bed facility built and ready to use in 3 weeks – and then managed the decommissioning of the facility, returning the SEC back to a conference venue in time for COP26.   Christine then took on an interim role as Director of Planning for NHS Scotland, supporting the safe restart of services in summer 2020, before joining the Covid Testing Programme, becoming Director of Test & Protect in December 2020.  The programme has delivered over 16.5 million PCR tests and contacted over 2 million individuals in Scotland.  Whilst still retaining this role, Christine also now shares the role of Director for the Care & Wellbeing Portfolio with her colleague Richard Foggo.  This is a portfolio of reform for Health & Social Care, with an overall mission to improve healthy life expectancy and deliver fairer outcomes.  Our work on Innovation is a key enabler to the Care & Wellbeing Portfolio.