Calls for public health funding in Calderdale to be more 'community-controlled'

Public health budget planning for the future should see more funding community-controlled to tackle some health issues in the places where people lived, says a report.
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More should be done to embed measures which bring health benefits into people’s environment, said Calderdale’s Director of Public Health, Paul Butcher.

Mr Butcher’s report on public health budgets this year (2019-20) and looking ahead was made to Calderdale Council’s Adult Health and Social Care Scrutiny Board.

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Mr Butcher said there were three areas where he believed transformation was needed, which were not mutually exclusive but needed the support of partners and politicians to enable.

Firstly, he wanted to use the public health budget to support a move to a model of community funding, enabling more resource to be controlled and used in localities, each of which had a population of around 50,0000, and this could be done by building on evidence accumulated by the Staying Well programme.

This could link-up with mental health work and action on health behaviours, for example, smoking and nutrition.

In turn, his second assessment was that funding needed to move from a focus on supporting individuals to a public health programme which tackled causes.

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To take one case, this meant rather than supporting individuals to lose weight a move to a model which influenced the environment people lived in, for example working with takeaways to produce healthier options for their customers.

“Currently there is very little resource which supports this type of work but it is one which will need political support as it inevitably means a potential reduction in support to individuals,” Mr Butcher said in his report.

Thirdly, Mr Butcher said the NHS long term plan stresses the importance of prevention and the service’s responsibility in addressing inequalities.

With the NHS indicating it should fund some individual pathway work, for example for tackling issues like smoking in pregnancy, he believed strongly it should also fund weight management services.

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Mr Butcher welcomed an increase in funding within the diabetes prevention programme aimed at supporting people at risk of diabetes.

In addition, there were a number of services which the public health budget currently funds which need to be transferred to Calderdale’s Clinical Commissioning Group, including Youth

Offending Team nurse funding costing around £50,000 and a health contribution to domestic violence work of around £20,000, he said.

Assuming a promised Government increase in funding arrives, the authority’s Public Health budget should be around £13.2 million in 2020-21, according to the report.

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It outlined where some savings were being made and some areas where some extra funding was being provided.

Coun Colin Hutchinson (Lab, Skircoat) said: “One of the few items increased is a modest sum on school nurses – I see this as being potentially very useful.”