Watch Live: Health Secretary Matt Hancock delivers speech on the "future of public health"

18 August 2020, 11:11

The Future of Public Health, Keynote Speech by Rt Hon Matt Hancock MP

By EJ Ward

@EJWardNews

Health Secretary Matt Hancock will announce on Tuesday that parts of Public Health England will become the Government's new Institute for Health Protection.

A story placed with The Sunday Telegraph suggests that the Covid-19 response work of PHE is to be merged with NHS Test and Trace to form a new Health Protection Institute, designed specifically to deal with pandemics.

Baroness Dido Harding, who runs the NHS Test and Trace scheme, has been tipped to take on the top job at the agency.

The former chief executive of TalkTalk was appointed in May to lead the contact tracing programme, which relies on identifying people who have been in contact with a positive coronavirus case and getting them to self-isolate.

Since then, the programme has faced questions about performance and value for money.

Watch the whole announcement in the video at the top of the page.