The agency within the Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) consisting of general and special staff offices that support the Assistant Secretary for Health and the Surgeon General. These two plan and direct the activities of the Public Health Service (PHS). In May of 1995, an initiative to reengineer the way the DHHS operates suggested that the Office of the Secretary and the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Health be combined, thereby eliminating an entire organizational management layer.