{"id":23660,"date":"2020-09-14T16:40:42","date_gmt":"2020-09-14T15:40:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/unitelive.org\/?p=23660"},"modified":"2020-09-14T16:40:43","modified_gmt":"2020-09-14T15:40:43","slug":"unite-concerns-for-phe-demise","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/?p=23660","title":{"rendered":"Unite concerns for PHE demise"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"fb-root\"><\/div>\n<p>A total of 13 health unions and professional organisations, including Unite, have written to the health and social care secretary Matt Hancock protesting at Public Health England (PHE) being subsumed into the National Institute for Health Protection (NIHP).<\/p>\n<p>In the letter, they raised concerns about the creation of NIHP \u00e2\u20ac\u0098without properly consulting expert staff and without a clear plan for the future of large swathes of PHE.\u00e2\u20ac\u2122<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u015bUnite is the lead union for staff at PHE and we have already stated that we believe that PHE was being lined up as the fall guy for ministers\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 bungling over the handling of the coronavirus pandemic,\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 commented Unite national officer for health Jackie Williams.<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u015bSerious questions need to be asked about the political decisions behind why PHE has been axed in this disgraceful fashion. It is an executive agency of the Department of Health and Social Care answerable to Matt Hancock and his ministerial team, in particular public health minister Jo Churchill (with \u00e2\u20ac\u0098sponsorship of PHE\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 in her portfolio).<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u015bThere has been a complete lack of consultation with expert stakeholders and the unions representing the staff about the future functions of PHE at a time when the country is still in the middle of a global pandemic. Such discussions should take place as a matter of urgency.<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u015bThe dire situation is compounded by Tory peer Dido Harding being parachuted in to run the NIHP with no apparent qualifications for the job.<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u015bThe NIHP needs to be fully resourced and independent with the ability to speak \u00e2\u20ac\u0098truth to power\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 on the key public health issues of the day.<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u015bUnite is also calling for the swingeing cuts to PHE\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s budget over recent years to be restored.<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u015bOur members at PHE are dedicated professionals with public health at the centre of their work on a daily basis \u00e2\u20ac\u201c their hardworking efforts should be respected and their contribution not used as a political football.<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u015bWe will be giving our members maximum support during this unnecessary and politically motivated transition which was not of their making,\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 she concluded.<\/p>\n<p><strong><em>By Shaun Noble <\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A total of 13 health unions and professional organisations, including Unite, have written to the health and social care secretary Matt Hancock protesting at Public Health England (PHE) being subsumed into the National Institute for Health Protection (NIHP).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":23286,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[29,44],"wps_subtitle":"Health unions write to Hancock in protest","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23660"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=23660"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23660\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23662,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23660\/revisions\/23662"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/23286"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=23660"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=23660"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=23660"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}