Restructuring of the Office for Health Improvement and Disparities is a further step in the wrong direction for tackling health inequalities

Last week, the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) made big staff reductions at the Office for Health Improvement and Disparities (OHID) as part of an internal restructuring. According to reports,1 this includes the loss of several senior and experienced officials—and some reports claim that OHID has been “decimated,” with up to 50% of the central workforce now cut.2 Concerns about these further reductions in England’s public health capacity post-covid have been expressed by sector leaders and by former health ministers James Bethell and Philip Hunt.2 The DHSC has responded to these reports to say that prevention will be embedded across DHSC—but questions remain about how this can be done with so few people left with any expertise, and about who now has leadership over reducing health inequalities.These cuts come at a time when the UK public inquiry into covid-193 is still examining the appropriateness of the UK’s pandemic…
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