Public
Health England (PHE) has released their annual plan for 2015-16, setting out their
main functions and actions.
PHE
is an executive agency of the Department of Health, working to ‘protect and improve the nation's health
and wellbeing, and reduce health inequalities’. Despite only having been
established in 2013, PHE has announced a new programme of organisational
change, with three main themes:
- Ensuring that our science continues to
compete with the best in the world – including creation of a ‘unified
National Infection Service’ and a ‘world class infrastructure’ based on
relocation of staff to a new
‘Science Hub’ in Harlow.
- Bringing that same rigour to bear on our
health improvement work
- Aligning our local presence around how
local government organises itself – by reducing the number of local centres
from fourteen plus London to eight plus London.
The
document sets out PHE’s vision that the country should be protected from health
threats including infectious disease outbreaks ; that prevention of ill-health
should be recognised as an integral element of delivering the ‘NHS efficiency
challenge’ and PHE should be seen as the ‘go to’ partner for advice in this
areas; and that PHE should be recognised nationally and internationally as a
‘leading scientific institution’, and as essential for national life sciences
research and infrastructure, as well as demonstrating consistent efficiency and
efficacy.
PHE’s
action plan for the year ahead falls into three main areas:
- Improving the public’s health and wellbeing - addressing major
health concerns, improving early childhood health and workplace well-being, and
using ‘sustainable health and care services’ such as screening and vaccination
programmes.
- Building the capacity and capability of the
public health system -
equipping the system to tackle current and future challenges.
- Protecting the health of the public - combatting infectious
diseases and environmental hazards. In
the year ahead they wish to ‘apply cutting-edge science to our work’, tackle
antimicrobial resistance (AMR), reduce tuberculosis (TB) and contribute to improved
global health security.
Specific plans for the year ahead within protecting the health of the public include:
Acting against AMR – delivering elements of the
national AMR implementation plan and providing information on antibiotic
prescribing
Delivering the TB Strategy for England - setting up local
TB control boards and methods for TB diagnosis and surveillance
Improving access to HIV testing via a national
home sampling (postal) service
Delivering routine genome sequencing as part of the
100,000 Genomes Project
