17-08-2020, 12:42 AM
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Coronavirus: Public Health England 'to be replaced'
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-53799854It currently employs around 5,500 full-time staff, made up mostly of scientists, researchers and public health professionals.
Government Ministers have reportedly been unhappy with the way PHE has responded to the coronavirus crisis.
The Sunday Telegraph reorts that Health Secretary Matt Hancock will merge the NHS Test and Trace scheme with the pandemic response work of PHE.
The new body could be called the National Institute for Health Protection and may become "effective" in September, but the change will not be fully completed until the spring.
Health Editor
It is easy to point the finger at PHE, but it is an executive agency accountable to the secretary of state, Matt Hancock.
Decisions in March were made in collaboration with ministers and the chief medical and scientific advisers. Sources point out that PHE was never set up to be a body responsible for mass community testing and that what's needed now is an organisation fully focused on pandemic planning.
17-08-2020, 06:38 AM
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Re: Coronavirus: Public Health England 'to be replaced'
HiPHE did not perform well, but it was an agency under the direct control of the Health Secretary which had been stripped of money.
The Health Secretary was well aware it could not cope with a pandemic, he had been told of this by his own Inspectors but gambled that one would not happen.
He lost.
17-08-2020, 08:50 AM
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Re: Coronavirus: Public Health England 'to be replaced'
Originally Posted by TessA
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Another cr*pfest by this gang of posh gits in Government.
I bet you had never heard of public health England until March this year
Good job its getting turned into something useful
17-08-2020, 11:24 AM
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Re: Coronavirus: Public Health England 'to be replaced'
https://www.theguardian.com/politics...health-englandHe also pointed out that PHE is an executive agency of the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC), unlike other health bodies such as NHS England and the Care Quality Commission. He said: “This gives ministers direct control of its activities. So whilst it might be convenient to seek to blame PHE’s leadership team, it is important that the government reflects on its responsibilities as well. The government’s strategy in the early stages of the pandemic in key areas of PHE’s responsibility such as testing was flawed and confusing. Ministers, not PHE officials, were driving that strategy, directing the response and allocating resources accordingly.”
The government intends to merge PHE with NHS Test and Trace, which is run by the private firm Serco*, to form a new body called the National Institute for Health Protection.
The former Talk Talk boss Baroness Harding, the head of NHS test and trace and of the regulator NHS Improvement, whose husband is the Conservative MP John Penrose, is tipped to run the new institute.
* In September 2013, Serco was accused of extensive sexual abuse coverups of immigrants at Yarl's Wood Immigration Removal Centre prison in Bedfordshire, England In August 2014, Serco was criticised for using immigrant detainees as cheap labour, with some being paid as little as £1 per hour.
* In January 2019, it was reported that Serco had lost the contract to provide housing to asylum seekers in Glasgow. A Freedom of Information request by the Scottish Refugee Council showed that Serco had been charged nearly £3m by the Home Office for repeatedly breaching its contract to house asylum seekers in Glasgow and Northern Ireland.
* In health services, Serco's failures include the poor handling of pathology labs and fatal errors in patient records. At St Thomas' Hospital, the increase in the number of clinical incidents arising from Serco non-clinical management has resulted in patients receiving incorrect and infected blood, as well as patients suffering kidney damage due to Serco providing incorrect data used for medical calculations. A Serco employee later revealed that the company had falsified 252 reports to the National Health Service regarding Serco health services in Cornwall.
* On 24 October 2017, it was reported that Serco was preparing to buy healthcare contracts from facilities management business Carillion. The deal included 15 contracts, with annual revenues of approximately £90m, for which Serco would pay £47.7m, with Carillion losing £1bn from the value of its order book.
* In May 2020, Serco accidentally shared the personal email addresses of nearly 300 trainee COVID-19 contact tracers.
There's a lot more on Serco sharp practice, corruption, fraud and incompetence freely available yet the company is favoured by Tory governments .....
17-08-2020, 11:40 AM
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Re: Coronavirus: Public Health England 'to be replaced'
Originally Posted by Omah
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https://www.theguardian.com/politics...health-england* Serco supplies electronic tagging devices for offenders and asylum seekers. In 2013, Serco, as well as its rival G4S, was accused of overcharging the Ministry of Justice on its contract to tag offenders. In 2019, Serco repaid £68.5 million to the government for its overcharging on the contract and (somehow) avoided being charged with fraud, thus maintaining its eligibility for government contracts.
* In September 2013, Serco was accused of extensive sexual abuse coverups of immigrants at Yarl's Wood Immigration Removal Centre prison in Bedfordshire, England In August 2014, Serco was criticised for using immigrant detainees as cheap labour, with some being paid as little as £1 per hour.
* In January 2019, it was reported that Serco had lost the contract to provide housing to asylum seekers in Glasgow. A Freedom of Information request by the Scottish Refugee Council showed that Serco had been charged nearly £3m by the Home Office for repeatedly breaching its contract to house asylum seekers in Glasgow and Northern Ireland.
* In health services, Serco's failures include the poor handling of pathology labs and fatal errors in patient records. At St Thomas' Hospital, the increase in the number of clinical incidents arising from Serco non-clinical management has resulted in patients receiving incorrect and infected blood, as well as patients suffering kidney damage due to Serco providing incorrect data used for medical calculations. A Serco employee later revealed that the company had falsified 252 reports to the National Health Service regarding Serco health services in Cornwall.
* On 24 October 2017, it was reported that Serco was preparing to buy healthcare contracts from facilities management business Carillion. The deal included 15 contracts, with annual revenues of approximately £90m, for which Serco would pay £47.7m, with Carillion losing £1bn from the value of its order book.
* In May 2020, Serco accidentally shared the personal email addresses of nearly 300 trainee COVID-19 contact tracers.
There's a lot more on Serco sharp practice, corruption, fraud and incompetence freely available yet the company is favoured by Tory governments .....
No surprise the lying left wing labour government tried to privatise the NHS through the back door by subcontracting services through PFI to hide the financial disaster from the public and keep it off the balance books.
At least the tories are doing something to fix the problem, not brush it under the carpet like the corrupt, lying incompetent labour government did.
Getting rid of PHE is a great idea - it's useless, costs a fortune and doesn't work.
17-08-2020, 11:44 AM
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Re: Coronavirus: Public Health England 'to be replaced'
Originally Posted by AnnieS
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Dismantling a public health body in the middle of a pandemic is an unusual move... one would suspect that this is more about trying to get around the legislation put in place by the Tories in the past.
17-08-2020, 11:48 AM
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Re: Coronavirus: Public Health England 'to be replaced'
Originally Posted by swimfeeders
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HiPHE did not perform well, but it was an agency under the direct control of the Health Secretary which had been stripped of money.
The Health Secretary was well aware it could not cope with a pandemic, he had been told of this by his own Inspectors but gambled that one would not happen.
He lost.
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