§ Lord Clement-Jonesasked Her Majesty's Government:
How many public health laboratories are scheduled to be transferred (a) to the Health Protection Agency; and (b) to their local National Health Service trust; and what is the rationale underlying these decisions. [HL539]
§ Lord Hunt of Kings HeathSome 31 laboratories of the Public Health Laboratory Service are to be transferred to National Health Service trusts and 10 to the Health Protection Agency.
The rationale underlying these decisions, as described in detail in the Chief Medical Officer's strategy for combating infectious diseases, Getting ahead of the Curve, is that the proposed Health Protection Agency is intended to be a specialist body fulfilling a health protection role, as distinct from an operational clinical role. To this end, the laboratories of the PHLS that provide a general clinical diagnostic service are to be transferred to the NHS, while those that provide a specialist or reference function are to transfer to the proposed Health Protection Agency. The public health role of all the laboratories is to be maintained and we intend that the move will strengthen public health microbiology throughout the NHS.
§ Lord Clement-Jonesasked Her Majesty's Government:
What has been achieved as a result of the strategic review of the Public Health Laboratory Service conducted in 1994. [HL544]
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§ Lord Hunt of Kings HeathThe report of the strategic review group was presented to the Public Health Laboratory Service board in Autumn 1994. After consultation, the board accepted all the conclusions and recommendations in the report. The board's decisions on its new strategy were endorsed by the Department of Health and the Welsh Office.
The report recommended that the service should take steps to enhance all aspects of its scientific, technological and managerial capacity, so that it could respond even more effectively to the challenges posed by new and emerging infections, by technological and scientific development, and by the changes occurring in the National Health Service.
The steps which were taken by the board at the time have resulted in a service which has proved its effectiveness in responding to many challenges from new and emerging infections since 1994 and which continues to do so. They included a service development programme to strengthen its public health functions: a restructuring of the network of area and regional public health laboratories into groups, to enhance their management and effectiveness and to provide a defined level and quality of services to local populations, hospital/NHS trusts, general practitioners. consultants in communicable disease control, local authority environmental health departments and other customers; and a service-wide drive to make better use of resources and to increase the value for money provided for all its customers.