Public health background

Government’s public health white paper, “Healthy Lives, Healthy People”, published in December 2010, outlined a range of proposals which will transform the way in which public health is funded, managed and implemented at the national, regional and local level. Core components of the proposals include:

• Local authorities to have a new role in improving the health and wellbeing of their population and to take on primary responsibility for health improvement;
• The creation of Public Health England (PHE), an executive agency of the Department of Health as an integrated public health delivery body;
• Directors of Public Health (DsPH) will play a crucial role in leading on public health and will be jointly appointed by local authorities and PHE;
• The introduction of a ‘health premium’ to incentivise activity to reduce health inequalities;
• The introduction of public health budgets, ring-fenced from within the overall NHS budget, for local authorities to support health improvement locally against a proposed outcomes framework;
• Data on health outcomes at local, regional and national level to be published annually; and
• Public health commissioning to be included within the NHS Commissioning Board’s (NHSCB) responsibilities.

In July 2011, government published “Healthy Lives, Healthy People: update and way forward”, setting out further details on its plans.This identifies issues requiring further development, a timeline for work going forward and how Government expect the new system to work, these include:

• clarifying the role of local authorities and the Director of Public Health in health improvement, health protection and population healthcare;
• proposals for who is responsible for commissioning the different public health services;
• the mandatory services local authorities will be required to provide;
• the grant conditions they expect to place on the local authority public health grant;
• more detail on establishing Public Health England as an Executive Agency
• clear principles for emergency preparedness, resilience and response

Government will be producing a series of public health reform updates through the autumn setting out the details of how the new public health system will operate and preparations for the transition.  London Councils will be studying these closely and identifying the implications of these for borough plans in this area.

For more information on this you can see our publications:

London Councils response to 'Healthy lives, healthy people' - public health strategy