Talking of desperate blame shifting Matt Hancock will attempt that re Public Health England - a body he is responsible for & who take direction from him.

Last year ministers outlined PHE’s priorities. They didn’t mention preparing for a pandemic...
https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/789194/phe-priorities-in-health-and-care-2019-2020-letter.pdf

A structural reorganisation mid pandemic is time consuming, energy sapping. It’s risky indeed irresponsible. And what an insulting way to treat hardworking staff who heard about this from a pay walled Sunday newspaper leaving them with questions and worries about their jobs.

Test & Trace isn’t world beating as promised. It’s spent £ millions on outsourced Serco call centres & private labs when everyone advised them to put local health experts in lead. Cash would be more effective if given to local public health. Serco shouldn’t receive a penny more.

PHE has a wide range of health priorities - addiction, sexual heath, obesity, children’s health, anti smoking, Antimicrobial Resistance and (of obvious increasing importance) key role in supporting uptake & access to vaccinations.

Who will be responsible for these priorities?

We went into this pandemic with health inequalities widening and life expectancy going backwards for poorest. Covid thrives on these inequalities disproportionately impacting the poorest and BAME communities. A strong well funded public health sector is needed more than ever.

Today we’ll get a structural reorganisation, an attempt at blame shifting, more corrosive privatisation.

The shift we need is towards a local test & trace system delivering mass testing, finds cases, uses local expertise to trace & supports people to isolate with security.