Newly launched Health Protection Agency says staff 'meltdown'has failed to materialise

A predicted 'meltdown' of staff following the creation of a new agency responsible for co-ordinating a response to a biological or chemical terrorist attack has not happened, according to the agency's chief executive.

A leaked report on the Health Protection Agency, which begins work this week, predicted that the end of the Public Health Laboratory Service, which has been subsumed by the HPA, could lead to an exodus of staff. But HPA chief executive Pat Troop said staff had not left in significant numbers.

Speaking in the run-up to the agency's launch this week, Dr Troop said there had been enormous interest in working for the agency and she stressed that she was confident that the HPA was ready to deal with any terrorist incident, even if it happened in the first few days of the agency's existence.

Although individual acute and primary care trusts will still draw up plans for dealing with a terrorist attack in their area, responsibility for co-ordinating a response to a biological or chemical incident will lie with the HPA. The agency will provide health emergency planning advisors to help co-ordinate planning in local areas.

Dr Troop said she was confident that plans for a 'robust response' to an attack had been in place for some time and the HPA would simply continue that work.

She said the body had already been contacted by many other countries wanting to tap into its expertise: 'We are the first agency with comprehensive expertise at national level linked to infrastructure at local level, and we have had enormous interest from other countries.'