The Sunday papers are reporting the the Tory government are planning to abolish Public Health England and create a new body led by the architect of the failing national track and trace system – see https://news.sky.com/story/coronavirus-health-secretary-to-replace-public-health-england-with-specialist-pandemic-unit-says-report-12050234?fbclid=IwAR2vTtlKC0w_uCI2EfPEVR_bQE4zYnPtLmtZpv8u721yLGfjTUw1Lu27sIM
St Helens Labour Council Leader David Baines says: “This is a scandal. The government are doing it purely as a distraction from their own failures. They are beyond parody and beneath contempt.
The national Test and Trace scheme is run by private companies Serco and Sitel, who have been given huge amounts of public money to run a vital scheme, and they are failing.
To even consider scrapping PHE and merging it with the failing system, and putting the person leading that failing system in charge of the whole thing (and she just happens to be the wife of a Tory MP!) is a disgrace.
Instead of carrying out restructures to distract from their own failures, giving money to private companies, or top jobs and contracts to their mates, government should properly fund local Public Health services so we can properly manage outbreaks and prevent a second spike.
As it stands, government disregard for local knowledge and expertise and their chronic underfunding of Public Health services and councils is putting the health of the public at risk.