The English local government public health reforms: an independent assessment
- Collection:
- Health Policy and Services Research
- Author(s):
- Buck, David, author
- Contributor(s):
- King's Fund (London, England), issuing body.
- Publication:
- London, England : The King's Fund, January 2020
- Language(s):
- English
- Format:
- Text
- Subject(s):
- Health Care Reform Local Government National Health Programs United Kingdom
- Genre(s):
- Technical Report
- Abstract:
- Significant public health functions were transferred to local government from the NHS as part of the Coalition government's health and care reforms. Enough time has now passed to provide an overall assessment of the impact of these reforms. The reforms transferred the commissioning of some specific functions and a ring-fenced budget to local government, ranging from smoking cessation services through sexual health services to obesity prevention while retaining some clinically focused services, such as immunisation, in the NHS. But the reforms also had a wider purpose, for public health teams to influence and support wider local government decisions that impact the public's health, given the strong evidence that while the NHS has a significant role to play, much of what determines health--including good-quality homes, access to stable and rewarding work, safe and secure streets and a good environment--are influenced more strongly by local government. Our overall view is that the move to local government for many public health services was the right one. More important still, in the long term is the opportunity this has to influence wider local government policy and decisions; now is the time to make good on the opportunity in the context of the development of place-based population health systems. The reforms, however, coincided with austerity where local government funding, in the specific public health grant and more widely, was not prioritised by the government compared to NHS funding, receiving real-terms cuts from central government. There now needs to be an increase in funding from central government, at least an additional £1 billion for the public health grant every year from 2020/21, to keep pace with population growth and inflation.
- Copyright:
- Reproduced with permission of the copyright holder. Further use of the material is subject to CC BY license. (More information)
- Extent:
- 1 online resource (1 PDF file (88 pages))
- Illustrations:
- Illustrations
- NLM Unique ID:
- 101769602 (See catalog record)
- Permanent Link:
- http://resource.nlm.nih.gov/101769602