“Prognosis uncertain”: ADPH Responds to 10-year health plan

Directors of Public Health, who have overall responsibility for the health and wellbeing of residents in each local authority area in England, have responded to the Government’s 10-year health plan.

The ambition to move away from acute hospital treatment to local, neighbourhood health care using digital advances to make living healthier more accessible and efficient is a bold and welcome shift in national policy. There are also welcome commitments to reducing obesity and improving mental and physical health and wellbeing for children and young people.

However, whether the outlined plans will deliver on the Government’s promise to halve the gap in healthy life expectancy between the richest and poorest regions remains to be seen.

Greg Fell, President of the Association of Directors of Public Health, said:

“The Government has taken a significant step forward in changing how the nation thinks about health by recognising it isn’t just about treatment when something is wrong. Instead, we need to prevent illness and disease by improving the quality of the myriad of factors that determine how healthy we are – our houses, our education, our jobs, our diet, our community, our access to open spaces, our freedom to live in a smokefree environment – and much much more.

“Access to – and quality of – these basic building blocks of health, alongside protection from the things that we know harm health, must be improved for everyone if we are to realise the Government’s ambition of preventing illness and disease so that there are fewer people unable to work due to ill health, and less pressure on our health and social care services.

“As well as the increasingly understood social determinants of our health, the Government has also recognised the danger of industry influence on our health. The commitment to deliver the Tobacco and Vapes Bill and stop the advertising and sponsorship of vapes and other nicotine products is very welcome, as is the renewed promise to restrict junk food advertising and ban the sale of high-caffeine energy drinks to children.

“However, taking a strong stance against all the industries behind harmful products, including alcohol and gambling, is needed to really turn the tide on the huge numbers of people suffering – and ultimately dying – from consumption of harmful products.

“That means not just setting targets and improving labelling, all of which is needed and welcome, but applying the same types of hard-hitting and wide-reaching restrictions we know have reduced deaths from tobacco, to other industries. Only then will we see a real reduction in the availability, affordability and attractiveness of the harmful products that are currently contributing to 89% of all deaths in England.

“It is also unclear how the new NHS operating model will work alongside local authority public health teams. There are plenty of examples up and down the country of how this crucial partnership can provide effective initiatives to improve health outcomes and it will be important in the coming weeks and months to learn from these successful models to ensure that the NHS does indeed become the “best possible partner”.

“Directors of Public Health are ready and willing to do that work and look forward to helping drive forward the changes needed to help the Government realise their ambition but as always, the devil is in the detail and, for now, the prognosis is uncertain.”