Public health directors in England are asked to take charge of COVID-19 testing

Ministers have asked local directors of public health to take charge of COVID-19 testing in English care homes in what will be seen as a tacit admission that centralised attempts to run the programme have fallen short.

In a letter to sector leaders, seen by the Guardian, the care minister, Helen Whately, acknowledged that testing of care home residents and staff needs to be “more joined up”. She describes the new arrangements as “a significant change”.

Under the new approach, public health directors employed by local councils will take lead responsibility for arranging the testing of some 400,000 care home residents and 500,000 staff, in discussion with directors of adult social services, local NHS bodies and regional directors of Public Health England (PHE).

Critically, the local public health directors will decide which homes should have priority in the testing programme, which is still working up to a capacity of 30,000 tests a day for the sector.

The switch is a conspicuous, if belated, vote of confidence in local government’s ability to help get a grip on the Covid crisis. There has been frustration and incomprehension that public health teams have until now been left as bit-players in the testing programme and in tracking and tracing carriers of the virus.

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Source: The Guardian, 8 May 2020