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Public Health

The Statement continues: ““It will also develop health protection plans and screening programmes to protect people from health risks. Because we also know that the foundations of good health are rooted in the community, often at a neighbourhood level, we must strengthen and renew local leadership to ensure that these efforts reach deeply into communities and match their unique circumstances. Under this White Paper, the lead responsibility for improving health will pass to local government for the first time in 40 years. We intend to give local authorities new powers to plan, co-ordinate and deliver local strategies with the NHS and other partners and to embed the foundations of good health in ways that fit local circumstances. Directors of public health will provide strong and consistent leadership within local councils. We also intend to establish the new local statutory health and well-being boards as a way of bringing together the NHS and local government. Whereas before, public health budgets were constantly raided by other parts of the NHS, we will prioritise public health spending through a new ring-fenced budget. We will look to the highest standards of evidence and evaluation to ensure that this money is spent wisely. The new outcomes framework for public health, on which we will consult shortly, will provide consistent measures to judge progress on key elements across all parts of the system—nationally and locally. The framework will emphasise the need to reduce health inequalities and will be supported by a new health premium incentivising councils which demonstrate progress in improving outcomes. We have learnt over the last decade that state interventions alone cannot achieve success. We need a new sense of collective endeavour—a partnership between communities, businesses and individuals, which transforms not only the way we deliver public health, but also the way we think about it. Through the public health responsibility deal, the Government will work with industry to help people make informed decisions about their diet and lifestyle, to improve the environment for health, and to make healthy choices easier. Through greater use of voluntary and community organisations, we will reach out to families and individuals and develop new ways to target the foundations of good health. Reflecting the framework in the ladder of interventions developed by the Nuffield Council on Bioethics, we will adopt voluntary and less intrusive approaches so that we can make more progress, more quickly and resort to regulation only where we cannot make progress in partnership. This is a time when the NHS and social care are under intense pressure from an ageing population and higher costs. It is a time when we must therefore put as much emphasis on preventing illness as we do on treating it. In the past, public health has been a fragmented and forgotten branch of the health service. This White Paper will make it a central part of everything we do, and we will bring forward legislation in the new year to enact these changes. By empowering local authorities, by strengthening our knowledge of what works and by establishing the right incentives to drive better outcomes, the White Paper will deliver the strategy and support needed to reduce health inequalities and to improve the nation’s health. I commend this Statement to the House””. My Lords, that concludes the Statement.