Gabriel Scally | |
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![]() Gabriel Scally (Royal College of Physicians, 2021) | |
Born | Gabriel John Scally September 1954 (age 69) |
Nationality | Irish |
Education | Queen's University Belfast London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine |
Known for | Clinical governance |
Medical career | |
Profession | Public health physician |
Field | Public health |
Institutions | |
Notable works | Donaldsons' Essential Public Health |
Awards | Milroy lecture (2002) |
Gabriel John Scally FFPHM (born September 1954) is an Irish public health physician and a former regional director of public health (RDPH) for the south west of England. He is a visiting professor of public health at the University of Bristol and is a member of the Independent SAGE group, formed during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. He has also been chair of the trustees of the Soil Association. Previously he was professor of public health and planning, and director of the World Health Organization (WHO) Collaborating Centre for Healthy Urban Environments, both at the University of the West of England (UWE). He was president of the Section of Epidemiology and Public Health of the Royal Society of Medicine, a position he took in 2017.
Prior to his roles in public health, Scally trained in general practice. He spent his early career in Northern Ireland as chief administrative medical officer and director of public health for the Eastern Health and Social Services Board, where he contributed to the founding of a young people's sexual health service.
After moving to England, he led several inquiries into serious NHS clinical failures including pathology in Swindon, breast screening in Exeter and abuse in Winterbourne. He is credited, along with Sir Liam Donaldson, as defining clinical governance, a concept developed following high-profile cases, which included the Bristol heart scandal, the Shipman Inquiry and the Alder Hey organs scandal.
Scally resigned as RDPH in 2012, and was appointed as an associate fellow at the Institute for Public Policy Research, and as a visiting professor at the University of Bristol and UWE. In 2018, he assisted in an inquiry into the deaths of children from hyponatremia in Northern Ireland and led an independent inquiry into the CervicalCheck cancer scandal and the failures of cervical screening in the Republic of Ireland. In 2020, he co-authored an editorial in the British Medical Journal questioning the UK's response to COVID-19.