The Government is to press ahead with controversial plans to break up Public Health England (PHE), the Health Secretary has announced.
Matt Hancock said that the Covid-19 response work of PHE is to be merged with NHS Test and Trace and some of the work of the Joint Biosecurity Centre to form a new body designed specifically to deal with pandemics and other health threats.
Tory peer Dido Harding is to be interim executive chairwoman of the new National Institute for Health Protection.
The Government has faced criticism over the prospect of breaking up the PHE, which was established in 2013 under Conservative health reforms, in the middle of a pandemic.
Ministers have also been accused of using PHE as a “scapegoat” for other failings in the crisis.
