Public Health

HC 1048-I, Twelfth Report of Session 2010-12 - Volume I: Report, Together with Formal Minutes

Author:: House of Commons - Health Committee
Publisher:: TSO (The Stationery Office)

Price: £15.50

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'Public Health (HC 1048-I)' details Government plans for major changes to the public health system in England.

Changes will affect all three domains of public health:

health protection (addressing environmental threats to population health);
health improvement (tackling health inequalities and lifestyle issues impacting on health and wellbeing); and
healthcare public health (applying public health expertise to the provision of healthcare services).

A new dedicated public health service, Public Health England (PHE), will become operative from April 2013. The Committee believes the PHE must be visibly and operationally independent of Ministers.

Major new responsibilities for public health will also be assumed by local authorities, but the Committee finds that the lack of a statutory duty on local authorities to address health inequalities in discharging their public health functions is a serious omission in the Government's plans.

The Committee also calls for:

the Secretary of State for Health to be given an explicit statutory duty to reduce inequalities in public health as well as to protect the public from dangers to health;
the Department of Health to set public health budgets, both nationally and locally, that take account of objective measures of need;
the Chief Medical Officer to give professional leadership in respect of both the medical and public health professions;
the Government to review its opposition to proposals on regulation of health professions; and
the role of the Public Health Interventions Advisory Committee of the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence to be clarified.

Extent	102 pages	ISBN	9780215562050
Size	A4	Price	£15.50
Format	Paperback	Published	02 Nov 2011
Availability	Colour copy: 3 - 5 days	Delivery	Delivery options and charges