Responding to health and social care secretary Matt Hancock’s
speech on the future of public health, the chief executive of NHS
Providers, said:
“As a nation we’ve failed to properly prioritise or fund public
health in recent years and that came back to bite us hard as
COVID-19 hit, even though a global pandemic was top of the list
of national risks.
“We need to treat this as a major wake-up call and act
accordingly.
“The Secretary of State was right to point to some of the public
health successes achieved since the start of the pandemic, but
there have been major problems too. These include the lack of a
clear testing strategy, insufficient testing capacity for far too
long, an excessive focus on meeting a single capacity target on a
single day in April, questionable use of statistics, an
unacceptable delay in setting up NHS Test and Trace, and the
description of a brand new service as ‘world class’ undermining
its credibility from the start.
“It’s good to see the Secretary of State publicly acknowledge and
celebrate the achievements of hard working public health experts.
Many of the successes he referred to were the responsibility of
world class Public Health England staff. Many of the failings
have been the responsibility of the government as a whole, rather
than any one individual organisation.
“The contrast between the Secretary of the State’s public pride
in the work of PHE staff and the tone of Sunday’s negative media
briefing trailing today’s changes is deeply disappointing. The
new NHS People Plan, proudly launched by the Government less than
three weeks ago, places compassionate leadership at the heart of
the NHS mission. The relentless negative briefing campaign
against PHE, culminating in Sunday’s story, and the fact that
this is how PHE staff learnt of a major change to their
organisation, falls well below the standards the Government has
set the NHS.
“We agree that there is a logic to bringing both NHS Test and
Trace and PHE under a single command structure to focus on key
health protection responsibilities as we combat COVID-19. We are
reassured that, in our conversations today with the leaders who
will run the new organIsation, there will be no major rushed
restructure distracting staff from their core task of protecting
the nation at such a crucial time.
“However we will need clarity on what will happen to PHE’s wider
responsibilities for addressing the determinants of health and
supporting work to reduce health inequalities. For more than a
decade, public health has yo-yo’ed between local and national,
NHS and local government and a string of different national
organisations. We must get this next change right, recognising
that the NHS, local government and wider public services are all
key to effective public health. We also need the Comprehensive
Spendiing Review to confirm proper investment in public health
going forward.
“We welcome the appointment of as interim
chair. She has been an effective chair at NHS Improvement and has
demonstrated a significantly improved grip over the government’s
testing and tracing activity since setting up NHS Test and Trace,
recognising there is a huge amount to do to create a service that
will be ready for winter. We also welcome the appointment of
Michael Brodie as Interim CEO given his experience of PHE and its
work. It is important that any permanent appointments go through
due and proper process which will include taking full and proper
account of party political affiliations”.
