December 4, 2025

Chief Medical Officer’s Annual Report 2025: Infections

The Chief Medical Officer’s reports have been released annually for over 150 years, providing an independent assessment of the state of the public’s health in England. This year, Chris Whitty presented the 2025 report on infections. There are plenty of interesting things in the report and of course and lots of recommendations for the public, but there is an interesting emphasis is on infections in the elderly. While we have been talking a lot about infections in children, the data shows that the great majority of infections are now in older people. The CMO’s report focusses on changes we could make to get better at preventing infections in older age, something that would help improve quality of life for older people as well protecting the NHS.

Speakers included:

Prof Sir Chris Whitty, Chief Medical Officer for England, Department of Health & Social Care (DHSC)

Dr Nileema Patel, Editor-in-Chief of the Report

Dr Thomas Waite, Deputy Chief Medical Officer, Department of Health & Social Care (DHSC).

This Briefing was accompanied an SMC Roundup of Comments.