Public Health England to be replaced by new body
The coronavirus pandemic has claimed its biggest institutional scalp to date as the government announces the scrapping of Public Health England (PHE).
Health Secretary, Matt Hancock, has confirmed that PHE is set to be replaced by a new organization focused on acute threats like global pandemics.
The new body – styled as the National Institute for Health Protection (NIHP) – is set to be initially managed by Baroness Dido Harding, who currently runs the National Health Service’s (NHS) Test and trace in England.
In recent months the once vaunted PHE has become a toxic brand as government ministers used and abused it to deflect blame away from their own shortcomings in managing the coronavirus crisis.
The NIHP will reportedly begin work with “immediate effect” and to that end, both institutionally and functionally, it amalgamates the old PHE and NHS Test and Trace, in addition to the Joint Biosecurity Center, under a new cohesive leadership.
Hancock says the NIHP will have a “single and relentless mission” to protect people from “external health threats”, notably pandemics, biological weapons and infectious diseases.
According to the BBC’s health editor, Hugh Pym, the NIHP is modeled on Germany’s Robert Koch Institute which specializes in combating infectious diseases.
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