Restructured Food, Water and Environmental Microbiology Network will boost the Health Protection Agency’s ability to tackle emerging threats

The Health Protection Agency’s Food, Water and Environmental Microbiology Network (FW&E) will go live with a new structure on 1 April 2009.

The Network plays an important role in the protection of the public from any threats to health through food, water and the environment, such as Listeria, Salmonella, E. Coli, and Legionnaires’ disease.

The aim of the new arrangements has been to create a network of 12 enlarged laboratories at strategic locations across England, bringing together a critical mass of expertise, and replacing the previous structure of 26 smaller laboratories. All of the laboratories are fully-accredited, ten of which will be managed by the HPA, while the laboratories based in Stoke-on-Trent and Leicester will remain under the management of local health trusts.

The move to restructure the Network was spurred by recent reports by HPA Directors, Eric Bolton and Ian Farrell, which identified that the network suffered from a “fragility of service” due to problems with governance, service provision and staff training, development and retention.

The new structure has been designed in close consultation with stakeholders including environmental health departments, port health authorities, LACORS and the Food Standards Agency to ensure that their needs are fully met. The changes will help ensure improved future provision of FW&E services and enable the Agency to achieve greater capacity and resilience in responding to health threats from food, water and the environment.

Jim McLauchlin, Director of the FW&E Network, says:

The structure will result in a better co-ordinated, more robust network which will allow us to become more responsive to new and potential challenges such as the 2012 Olympics and outbreaks of infections such as norovirus.

In addition, the changes will deliver an improved service to staff, stakeholders and service users. This includes the rolling out of a new IT infrastructure and introduction of more rapid pathogen detection over the next few years and a single, co-ordinated transport system for sample collection and delivery with more collection points at convenient locations.