Gateshead Council’s Leader and Director of Public Health have questioned the Government’s decision to abolish Public Health England in the middle of the global coronavirus pandemic.

Council Leader Martin Gannon has written to the Health Secretary, Matt Hancock, urging him to work with local authorities to shape the new organisation insisting “this is not about party politics, but a public health system that best protects the residents we serve”. 

The Government announced this week that it intends to replace Public Health England with a National Institute for Health Protection.

But Gateshead Council is concerned over both the lack of clarity on the structure and accountability for the proposed new organisation, as well as the impact on attempts to manage the pandemic caused by disruption to the existing system.

Councillor Gannon said:

“We all understand that there have been many challenges with the response to Covid-19. Often, at a local level, we have needed to adopt additional measures to mitigate the problems that have arisen.

“However, it is my view, based on specialist public health advice, that the challenges we have experienced locally such as: limitations to tracing, delays in testing availability and the testing turnaround time, have not been as a result of inaction by our regional PHE teams, in fact quite the opposite.

“In our experience, the issues have been because of the fragmented national structures that were established to support test and trace capacity and capability which lies with central Government, not Public Health England.

“Ideally, I would like the decision to be reversed. However, I want to propose that local councils are engaged in the design of the future system, so we don’t lose the capability, capacity, skills and importantly our effective working relationships during this next critical phase.”

Alice Wiseman, Gateshead’s Director of Public Health, said: “Our regional PHE colleagues have been a critical element of our local response and as such, any proposal to dismantle these arrangements now, ahead of winter, present a real risk to protecting the health and wellbeing of our community.

“It is also critical to note that PHE have a much broader remit than just health protection and we would strongly recommend that any restructuring protects these functions which support health improvement and critically facilitate addressing health inequalities.

“We have all been involved with many re-organisations over the years and while, at times, there have been benefits to changes, we also understand the immense upheaval and disruption they create. Given the pressure we are all currently under I extremely concerned as this type of disruption is very likely to adversely affect our ability to protect our communities from Covid and indeed other infectious diseases as we come towards the winter months.”