UK: Government to abolish health watchdogs

The Health Protection Agency and the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority are to be axed under reforms.

The HPA and the HFEA are among the eight or ten of the 18 ‘arms-length bodies’ that will go or be merged with other organisations, BBC News Online reports.

Health Secretary Andrew Lansley said the aim was to save costs and cut bureaucracy in the NHS. He stressed that essential work would be moved to other bodies.

Most of the changes, designed to save £180m over the next few years, apply to England only, although some arms-length bodies cover the whole of the UK. The changes are laid out in the the document Liberating the NHS: Report of the arms-length bodies review.

Mr Lansley said: ‘Over the years the sector has grown to the point where overlap between organisations and duplication of effort have produced a needless bureaucratic web. By making sure that the right functions are being carried out at the appropriate level, we will free up significant savings to support front-line NHS services.’

The Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority will continue to function for the time being, but will transfer its functions by the end of the current Parliament between a new research regulator, the Care Quality Commission, and the Health and Social Care Information Centre.

The Health Protection Agency, which has been responsible for responding to public health hazards such as bird flu and swine flu since 2003, will hand over its workload to the Secretary of State as part of the new Public Health Service.

The National Patient Safety Agency will also go. Patient safety will instead be overseen by the National Commissioning Board, while its research and ethics functions will move elsewhere.

Some applaud the changes, the BBC reports. The National Treatment Agency for Substance Misuse, which is to go, has been heavily criticised for spending billions of pounds on schemes with little proof they work.

But opponents say closures could compromise patient and public safety.

Vivienne Nathanson, head of science and ethics at the British Medical Association, questioned the abolition of the HPA saying: ‘Public health messages are often more effective coming from this agency than the Government.’

Health watchdogs ‘are to be axed’. BBC News Online 26 July 2010

Liberating the NHS: Report of the arms-length bodies review. Department of Health, July 2010