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Public Health England needs to be replaced by a new agency that will specifically deal with protecting the country from pandemics, according to a report.
The Sunday Telegraph claims health secretary Matt Hancock will announce a new body modeled at the German Robert Koch Institute this week.
Ministers have apparently been dissatisfied with the way PHE has responded to the crisis in coronavirus.
The government was contacted by the BBC but declined to comment on the report.
A spokesman for the Department of Health and Social Care said: “Public Health England have played an integral role in our national response to this unusual global pandemic.
“We have always been clear that we need to learn the right lessons from this crisis to ensure we are in the strongest possible position, both as we continue to treat Covid-19 and respond to any future public health threat.”
The Telegraph reports that Mr Hancock will merge the NHS Test and Trace scheme with PHE’s pandemic response.
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The paper said the new body could be called the National Institute for Health Protection and would become “effective” in September, but the change would not be complete until the spring.
The Robert Koch Institute, on which the new body will presumably be based, is an independent agency that has taken control of Germany’s response to the pandemic.
Earlier this month, the government introduced a new way of counting daily coronavirus deaths in the UK following concerns that the method used by PHE overestimated it.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson also said the country’s response to Covid-19 could have been done “differently” and the government needed to learn lessons.
There has been talk for some time in Westminster about a major upheaval or even axing of Public Health England.
Blame for the controversial decision to stop testing and tracing coronavirus communities in March has been laid at PHE’s door.
The organization is growing with others in the political crossfire over the handling of the Covid-19 crisis. It has now emerged that its remaining responsibilities for virus testing and surveillance data monitoring in the UK will be transferred to a new body including NHS Test and Trace.
PHE will primarily remain responsible for preventive measures such as measures against obesity.
It’s easy to point the finger at PHE, but it’s an executive agency responsible for Secretary of State Matt Hancock.
Decisions in March were made in collaboration with ministers and the chief medical and scientific advisers. Sources indicate that PHE was never set up to be a body responsible for mass theme testing and that what is needed now is an organization fully focused on pandemic planning.
A full investigation of who is responsible and punishable for what policy will have to wait for an independent investigation – when that takes place.
John Ashton, a former regional director of public health in the north-west of England, said PHE “had a bad pandemic” but criticized the government’s reported plans to scrap the organization.
He told the BBC News Channel: “You are not dealing with the problem of a too-centralized, dysfunctional organization by creating another too-centralized organization, that is what is being proposed.
“You’re not changing amidst streams of horses – this pandemic still has a long way to go,” he said, adding that PHE should instead be strengthened as a slot.
PHE was created in 2013 – as part of a review by the NHS in England under former Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt – with responsibilities including preparation and response to health-related emergencies such as pandemics.
It currently has about 5,500 full-time employees, consisting primarily of scientists, researchers and public health professionals.
The website says it was set up to bring public health specialists from more than 70 organizations into a single public health service.
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