Department of Health and Human Services

Welcome to the official homepage of the Department of Health and Human Services. We regret to inform you that under the conditions of the Malton Quarantine, no further assistance can be provided to the citizens of Malton at this time.

Department of Health and Human Services

Abbreviation:	DHHS
Group Numbers:	Unknown
Leadership:	Secretary of Health and Human Services
Goals:	Oversight of the Public Health Service
Recruitment Policy:	Unknown--Not accepting members
Contact:	Royal Mail

The Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS), sometimes referred to as the Health Department, is a Cabinet department of Her Majesty's Government with the goal of protecting the health of all citizens and providing essential human services. Its motto is "Improving the health, safety, and well-being of the Commonwealth". Before the separate federal Department of Education was created in 1979, it was called the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare (HEW).

History

A Prime Minister proposed a Department of Education and Welfare as early as 1923, and similar proposals were also recommended by subsequent Prime Ministers, but for various reasons were not implemented. The Department was only created thirty years later under Reorganization Plan No. 1 of 1953 pursuant to authority granted in the Reorganization Act of 1949, in which the Prime Minister was allowed to create or reorganize executive branch departments as long as neither house of Parliament passed a legislative veto. This power to create new departments was removed after 1962, and in the early 1980s the Supreme Court declared legislative vetoes unconstitutional.

Unlike statutes authorizing the creation of other executive departments, the contents of Reorganization Plan No. 1 of 1953 were never properly codified within the United Kingdom Code, although Parliament did codify a later statute ratifying the Plan. Today, the Plan is included an appendix to Title 5 of the United Kingdom Code. The result is that DHHS is the only executive department whose statutory foundation today rests on a confusing combination of several codified and uncodified statutes.

The Department of Health, Education, and Welfare was renamed the Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) in 1979, when its education functions were transferred to the newly created Department of Education under the Department of Education Organization Act. DHHS was left in charge of the Public Welfare Administration, agencies constituting the Public Health Service, and Family Support Administration.

In 1995, the Public Welfare Administration was removed from the Department of Health and Human Services, and established as an independent agency of the executive branch of Her Majesty's Government.

DHHS is administered by the Secretary of Health and Human Services, who is appointed by the Prime Minister with the advice and consent of the House of Commons. The Public Health Service (PHS) is the main division of the DHHS and is led by the Assistant Secretary for Health. The current Secretary is the Vice-Chair of the Interagency Council on Homelessness, and the Department of Health and Human Services is a member of the Council, which is dedicated to preventing and ending homelessness in the United Kingdom.

The Public Health Service Commissioned Corps, the uniformed service of the PHS, is led by the Surgeon General who is responsible for addressing matters concerning public health as authorized by the Secretary or by the Assistant Secretary of Health in addition to his or her primary mission of administering the Commissioned Corps. The Office of Inspector General (OIG) investigates criminal activity for DHHS. The special agents who work for OIG have the same title series "1811", training and authority as other criminal investigators, such as MI5, MI6, the Metropolitan Police Service, and Scotland Yard. However, OIG Special Agents have special skills in investigating white collar crime related to National Health Service fraud and abuse. Organized crime has dominated the criminal activity relative to this type of fraud.

DHHS-OIG investigates tens of millions of dollars in National Health Service fraud each year. In addition, OIG will continue its coverage of all 100 Suburbs and the Quarantine Zone by its multi-agency task forces (PSOC Task Forces) that identify, investigate, and prosecute individuals who willfully avoid payment of their child support obligations under the Child Support Recovery Act.

HHS-OIG agents also provide protective services to the Secretary of DHHS, and other department executives as necessary.

In 2002, the department released Healthy People 2010, a strategic initiative for improving the health of Maltons. It is strongly suspected that this initiative may have failed.

Current Status

The DHHS has been officially inactive in Malton since after Quarantine. In the early days of the Malton Incident, DHHS health inspectors played a significant role in outbreak management and mitigation. The DHHS coordinated closely with the Department of Emergency Management and the Malton Emergency Medical Services. Ultimately, based on reports from NecroTech, the Secretary of Health and Human Services submitted a recommendation to the External Government that a military quarantine be enacted around the Malton area in the event a cure could not be discovered in a timely manner. This quarantine was quickly enacted by the Ministry of Defence.

After the initial quarantine, DHHS personnel continued to play a major role in maintaining the quarantine and ensuring the safety of Malton survivors. Following the collapse of the Malton government, the DHHS personnel in Malton were placed under the control of the local Ministry of Defence administration, which became known as the Malton Department of Defense. The local DHHS served as the medical branch of the MDD until finally utterly collapsing in the later years of the quarantine. As time wore on, and the survivor population in Malton dwindled, a large portion of key DHHS administrators of doctors permanently disappeared. Combined with a personnel crisis experienced by the MDD, the final remaining DHHS personnel were permanently reassigned to the MDD as Combat Medics.

No further services from the DHHS are to be expected in future.

DHHS Health Inspectors retrieve a corpse for further analysis.

Infection Treatment Centers

In order to combat the spread of the infection, the DHHS set up Infection Treatment Centers in most suburbs in the early days of the Quarantine. It was accidentally discovered by a DHHS field inspector that standard EMS-type First Aid Kits contained a magical ingredient that could reverse the effects of zombies' infectious bites. This DHHS inspector later conducted a detailed analysis of this ingredient and determined that it could be used as a permanent cure against zombism. Unfortunately, he was ambushed by a hungry hoard of undead belong to the MOB before he could reach an evac chopper and report his findings to the external government.

The Infection Treatment Centers remained in operation for some time before finally falling, one by one, to the hoards. The rate of infection ultimately proved too great to combat by stationary medical points, and the DHHS coordinated with remaining MEMS personnel to establish an unlimited supply of the critical First Aid Kits, hereafter referred to lovingly as FAKs, in all Hospitals, Infirmaries, and Malls in Malton.

Brain Rot Revive Clinic

After conducting a series of briefings with top NecroTech scientists, the DHHS set up several experimental clinics in NecroTech buildings where tests were conducted into reviving zombies with rotten craniums. The success of the NecroTech Syringe, with its proprietary formula derived from the ingredient of First Aid Kits, proved that even the long undead citizens of Malton could be brought back to life. Unfortunately, the DHHS Brain Rot Revive Clinic program suffered fatal setbacks when a number of key NecroTech installations were destroyed by recently revived zombies, who apparently preferred to be shambling corpses. After this failure, the DHHS outsourced the entire endeavor to independent contractors, providing them with the key documentation on the correct procedure for reviving brain-rotten zombies in operational NecroTech buildings.