With Public Health England gone next month, coronavirus may not be the only infectious disease we need to worry about

Health isn’t just about pandemics. Without adequate funding of the services that will be cut, the implications for things like HIV, Hepatitis and drugs could be dangerous

The winding up of Public Health England shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone. In fact, Matt Hancock, the health secretary, as well as the prime minister, have been heavily hinting this would happen.

This crude attempt to blame a public body for poor performance during the Covid-19 pandemic is absurd and will be seen for what it is – passing the buck. For the government to suggest that Public Health England was too slow to respond to the pandemic and when it did it was ineffective, is inaccurate and misleading. It is akin to blaming a mechanic for a poorly performing car that had no engine in it to begin with.

This government has reduced the public health budget by 40 per cent in recent years. Little wonder they were unable to deliver what was expected of them. An optimal public health system needs resourcing and political backing, Public Health England had neither.

Hancock appears to work on the basis that there is national amnesia. The Conservative government established Public Health England eight years ago and has had sole responsibility for its brief and funding since. Politicians love to point-score by reorganising (or disorganising) the NHS and all its offshoots like public health, they just can’t help themselves. It’s no doubt made all the easier under the Cummings ideology of slashing and burning public bodies, perceived as inefficient and old fashioned. But it’s difficult to imagine a worse time to be tinkering with a public health system than during a global pandemic, particularly as the inevitable second wave is on the horizon.

Making changes based on learning from experience during coronavirus is wise, but that’s not what this is about. This is a simple rebadging exercise with no discernible change in objective or what will be delivered on the ground.

Giving something a new name doesn’t of itself produce change. So it is with the replacement for Public Health England which will soon become the National Institute for Health Protection. This fits a pattern that has played out during the pandemic: prioritising private business over public bodies. We’ve already witnessed the colossal waste of funding given to Serco to run test and trace, wherein taxpayers’ money has been given to a private company with little experience or expertise in an area that local public health teams have an abundance of skill and ability to perform.

Scrapping Public Health England is not only an attempt to apportion blame by politicians, it will facilitate a greater role for the private sector. And redesigning this organisation will inevitably open up opportunities for the sector to be tasked with running more services.

There is insufficient detail in the announcement to assess how the National Institute for Health Protection will operate. Details matter as public health isn’t just about pandemics, they have a broader role. Public Health England, for example, has been responsible for areas like specialist drug and alcohol treatment, although that’s mostly been sub-contracted to the third sector in recent years after experiencing a similar level of cuts to budgets as Public Health England. These aren’t services that attract voter sympathy, but they are critical and certainly not just a “nice to have” optional extra.

Even if you don’t care about providing treatment and hope to people who become addicted to alcohol and other drugs you might care about the risk of contracting HIV or Hepatitis. Without adequate treatment and funding of these services, rates of infection will increase among the wider population. The original HIV outbreak in the 1980s was tackled by increasing funding and availability of needle exchange services for people injecting drugs. This was introduced by a Conservative government that understood the need for harm reduction services, even if the current administration sadly doesn’t.

I don’t believe in coincidences, so the fact that this announcement is being made at the end of a week that has been less than successful for this government with regards to A-levels suggests a crude attempt to distract us from failure. The problem with that is the distraction looks as bungled as the political management of exams.

Ian Hamilton lectures in mental health at the Department of Health Sciences, University of York