A new national body has been established to improve health and wellbeing and reduce inequalities.
Public Health England (PHE), an executive agency of the Department of Health, will be tasked with helping people to live longer, healthier lives, using the new public health outcomes framework to measure the health of the population over the next three years. It will focus on five key priorities:
• Helping people to live longer by reducing preventable deaths from conditions such as heart disease, stroke, cancer and liver disease.
• Increasing healthy life expectancy by tackling conditions which place a burden on many lives, such as anxiety, depression and back pain.
• Protecting the population from infectious diseases and environmental hazards, including emerging risks and the growing problem of antimicrobial resistance.
• Supporting families to give children the best start in life, through working with health visitors, Family Nurse Partnerships and the Troubled Families Programme.
• Helping employers to facilitate and encourage their staff to make healthy choices.
Duncan Selbie, chief executive of PHE, said: “For the first time in 40 years, local authorities will have a legal responsibility for improving the health of their communities. Local government is the natural leader for this task – they will be able to place health and wellbeing in the wider context of the local economy, housing, leisure, education, crime and community resilience, and have the skills, knowledge and passion to provide public health services designed for the needs of their local population.”
