Comments on: 4. Promote public health

By: Wendy Elizabeth Day (Miss)

Wendy Elizabeth Day (Miss) — Wed, 08 Sep 2010 11:31:31 +0000

GP surgeries should not be open any longer than about 7 pm – GP’s are often overworked as it is. Lack of social workers at my local surgery, should be this provision for adults who are out of work, someone to talk to to relieve pressure on the GP.

By: Emma

Emma — Wed, 08 Sep 2010 10:10:48 +0000

Whilst it is recognised that there is a need for more health visitors to work with families, intervening at the earliest opportunities to promote children’s outcomes, has there been any consideration of the need for more school nurses? In 2004 Choosing Health stated it would fund one full time year round school nurse for each cluster of primary schools and its associated senior school and we are nowhere near that target. School nurses provide an essential public health function to children between the ages of 4 and 16( in some areas 17 and 18 year olds too). Will school nurses be recognised in this plan with prvision of training, and additional input into the workforce so that those of us already working with schools, children and families are not just ‘firefighting@ situations but able to provide a level of service that would enable children to meet their “every child matters ” outcomes at a much earlier stage.

By: Linda

Linda — Mon, 09 Aug 2010 07:36:28 +0000

As someone who has worked with public intervening and helping them to change behaviour which is damaging their health be it weight, diet , smoking or substances- could we not be involved in rolling out talking therapies rather than training people who are not already working in such areas and already have expertise with such services? Also its not good telling private industry how to look after the health of its staff when the NHS makes it very hard for me as a working carer to look after my own physical or mental health- this must be addressed before telling others how to look after their staff.

By: Joanne H

Joanne H — Wed, 04 Aug 2010 14:18:43 +0000

Health visitors should be paid more in area’s of high disadvantage and work from the phase 1 surestart programme centres. It is all to easy for Hv’s to opt to stay in the less disadvantaged area’s, low child protection etc because there is no financial disadvantage and less stress.
Health visitors need regualar supervision session, which rarely happens at the moment except in relationship to child protection. Ensuring all HV’s worked from within a multi- disciplinary team would promote more holistic practice and increase accountablity.

By: YS

YS — Tue, 03 Aug 2010 10:44:31 +0000

Alot of the changes mentioned here in relation to public health is again an extension of what was already proposed by the previous government.
I would like to point out though that the comment made by Paul regarding funding cut from health visiting due to sure start is untrue. In fact locally through sure start we were able to commit increased investment into health visiting and we have also been able to locally target areas of greater need through sure start.
This commitment for extra 4,200 health visitors is interesting because I would like to know where will these extra ‘health visitors’ come from? we know that places on the specialist practitioner for public health (HV) programmes are limited nationally and that there are more health visitors coming to retirement age than those coming into health visiting. What are the details? Is this going to be phased over a number of years and exactly how many extra health visitors will this mean for each city/town/area? will this be calculated based on need/deprivation etc? or will the number be just picked from the air??

By: Paul

Paul — Tue, 27 Jul 2010 09:38:09 +0000

4.9 Recruit 4,200 extra Sure Start health visitors, subject to the Spending Review
Interesting aim this one. It would appear the coalition government has fallen for the previous government’s love of Sure Start despite all evidence that it hasn’t delivered. What it has done is the following;
the middle classes who already got services now get better services due to easier access; massive funding has been lost from other services such as health visiting as a result of this “focus” on Sure Start; the needy whom this was apparently meant to help generally haven’t accessed SS; result – continued issues re child poverty, child health re poverty.

I would have preferred to have seen a wholescale review of Sure Start in each area (perhaps the GP commissioners will see sense on this and do one) and work out whether or not SS has benefited local areas or not. Have they reached out to vulnerable families? Have they helped these families access services they wouldn’t have already accessed?
Are families better off as a result? Would the vast funds spent on SS have been better spent on more health visitors, community nurses, primary mental health workers, school nurses and if this had occurred would they have achieved the same/better outcomes?

By: Paul

Paul — Tue, 27 Jul 2010 09:32:53 +0000

4.6 Ensure greater access to talking therapies to reduce long-term costs for the NHS
- (Start Jun 2010)

I hope this isn’t just a repeat of the previous government’s mantra. Specifically the fact that they put a lot of psychologists trained in CBT in a room who then (surprise surprise) decided that what was needed was more psychologists doing more CBT.

I would like to hope that this aim means a range of talking therapies and indeed for many with mental health difficulties other therapies relating to play, work, art, education etc.

There is a good evidence base for a variety of therapies to be put on a menu. Yes, talking therapy is costly. This is because it involves 1 person (staff) talking to another person (client) for a duration. This is necessarily costly re staff cost, transport, buildings, duration of treatment etc. However the “invest to save” costs of this are outweighed by getting people back on track with their lives.

I want more detail and a range basically. Thanks.

By: Deborah Somerville

Deborah Somerville — Wed, 21 Jul 2010 10:04:05 +0000

A question:How will this new service of sure start health visitors link in with the current level of health visiting service or will all health visitors be employed by the council ?(again- SEE PRE- 1971 EMPLOYMENT OF HEALTH VISITORS BY THE COUNCIL)