Minister for Primary Care and Public Health (Neil
O'Brien): I am today informing Parliament of the formal
dissolution of Public Health England (PHE). This follows the
laying before Parliament of the PHE annual report and accounts
for 2021 to 2022. The annual report and accounts include half
year accounts for PHE covering the final period of its operation
between 1 April 2021 and 30 September 2021.
In August 2020 the Government announced its intention to reform
the public health system in England. These reforms were driven by
lessons learned from the pandemic, and by the need to make sure
we have a public health system fit for the future.
Since that announcement, we have established the United Kingdom
Health Security Agency (UKHSA) as organisation dedicated solely
to identifying, preventing and managing threats to health. The
Office for Health Improvement and Disparities (OHID) has been
created in the Department of Health and Social Care to put
prevention of ill health and the tackling of health disparities
at the heart of government. NHS England’s focus on prevention and
population health has been strengthened, and important national
disease registries have also moved to NHS England, to more deeply
embed prevention across the NHS.
On 30 September 2021, PHE ceased all operations and effectively
closed. At this point PHE’s functions and staff transferred to
UKHSA, OHID (in DHSC), NHS England and NHS Digital.
From 1 October 2021 the new national public health infrastructure
in England was fully operational.
