4. Promote public health
by Department of Health on 12 July 2010 | 8 commentsPromote better public health for the nation by centring the Department’s focus on public health, developing a clear strategy and partnering with the voluntary and private sectors
Actions: Establish Public Health Service | Give local communities greater control | Implement Public Health Responsibility Deal recommendations | Improve quality of occupational health services | Revise public health marketing strategy | Ensure greater access to talking therapies | Ensure hospitals share non-confidential gun/knife crime data with police | Prioritise dementia research | Recruit 4,200 extra Sure Start health visitors
4.1 Establish Public Health Service, including relevant health protection functions, and incorporate into DH the nutrition functions of Food Standards Agency
i. Incorporate FSA nutrition functions into DH – (Start Oct 2010)
ii. Publish White Paper on public health – (Start 2010)
iii. Begin implementation of Public Health Service – (Start Apr 2011)
iv. Public Health Service fully established – (Start Apr 2012)
4.2 Give local communities greater control over public health budgets, with payment by the outcomes they achieve in improving the health of local residents
i. Publish proposals in White Paper – (Start Dec 2010)
ii. Publish subsequent consultation document, including guidance on the most effective behaviour change techniques – (Start Dec 2010)
iii. Ring-fence public health allocations and establish “health premium” rewarding local authorities for tackling health improvement challenges among disadvantaged communities, and targeting public health resources on those with poorest health – (Start Apr 2012)
4.3 Begin to implement Public Health Responsibility Deal recommendations
- (Start Oct 2010)
4.4 Improve the quality of occupational health services and promote healthy workplaces with a focus on small businesses
i. Begin improvement of standards for occupational health by working with business, NHS+, Faculty of Occupational Medicine and the NHS Review – (Start Jun 2010)
ii. Work with business to implement the Responsibility Deal on health and employment – (Start Jun 2010)
iii. Introduce accreditation system for the new occupational health standard – (Start Early 2011)
4.5 Revise public health marketing strategy
i. Ensure all activity demonstrates a clear return on investment – (Start Jul 2010 – end Dec 2010)
ii. Include new requirements for private sector participants to demonstrate significant changes in business practices – (Start Jul 2010 – end Dec 2010)
4.6 Ensure greater access to talking therapies to reduce long-term costs for the NHS
- (Start Jun 2010)
4.7 Work with Home Office to ensure that hospitals share non-confidential information with the police so they know where gun and knife crime is happening
- (Start Jun 2010 – end Apr 2011)
4.8 Prioritise dementia research within the health research and development budget
- (Start Jun 2011)
4.9 Recruit 4,200 extra Sure Start health visitors, subject to the Spending Review
i. Develop goals and scope of implementation programme – (Start Jun 2010 – end Aug 2010)
ii. Develop initiatives and incentives to drive return to practice- (Start Aug 2010 – end Nov 2010)
iii. Develop plans to increase health visitor training places – (Start Aug 2010 – end Nov 2010)
iv. Identify appropriate commissioning structure to deliver specified number of visits – (Start Aug 2010 – end Nov 2010)
v. Develop new curriculum reflecting enlarged scope of health visitor role – (Start Aug 2010 – end Nov 2010)
vi. Communicate our priorities for enlarged scope of health visitor role to the Nursing and Midwifery Council – (Start Jan 2011)
vii. Begin implementation, subject to the Spending Review – (Start Jan 2011)
On 21 July 2010 Deborah Somerville said:
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)
On 27 July 2010 Paul said:
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.
On 27 July 2010 Paul said:
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?
On 03 August 2010 YS said:
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??
On 04 August 2010 Joanne H said:
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.
On 09 August 2010 Linda said:
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.
On 08 September 2010 Emma said:
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.
On 08 September 2010 Wendy Elizabeth Day (Miss) said:
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.