The health revolution
Author: Jamie Hailstone, The MJ |
New public health chief pledges councils will be free to set their own local priorities
Councils will be free to set their own local priorities when public health returns to local government next year, the official charged with oversight of policy has assured the sector.
In an exclusive interview with The MJ, the chief executive designate of Public Health England, Duncan Selbie, said local government would ‘be able to make the judgments’ about priorities when it assumed responsibility for public health in April 2013.
‘Public Health England will recognise that it is the local determination of priorities, and the local action, and response, which will matter the most,’ said Mr Selbie. ‘We will not be performance managing against a set of national standards.
‘There is an outcomes framework, which is based on evidence and research on the determinates of good health. That framework is not a straightjacket. Locally, people will work out what aspects of the framework they will prioritise.’
Mr Selbie said the re-emergence of tuberculosis had become a key issue in some parts of the country, while in other areas key issues which councils and their partners would now help to tackle were liver disease and the rising number of people with mental health problems.
He said Public Health England wanted to work with councils to raise standards, but was quick to confirm that any intervention should be ‘early and through local government’.
Mr Selbie said he had already spoken with council chief executives and directors around the country, and concluded ‘they don’t want another version of the Audit Commission’. He said: ‘Even the best organisations get into difficulty. Local government is well ahead of anything I have ever seen in the NHS for sector-led improvement. ‘This is something which really appeals and gets down to the core purpose of what local government is all about.’
Mr Selbie said returning public health responsibility to local government level was a ‘stroke of genius’, and would become the lasting legacy of the coalition’s current NHS reforms.
He also added that councils should not be worse off under the new public health funding formula, which could be finalised in November.
Surrey CC’s cabinet member for adult social care, Cllr Michael Gosling, said his authority would publish a cabinet paper in six weeks’ time, which would outline its public health aims and aspirations.
Surrey is looking to ‘reinvigorate’ its drink and drugs teams to help tackle the growing issue of suburban alcoholism ? viewed as a key challenge under the localised public health remit.
‘We need to be more proactive than public health has been in the past,’ said Cllr Gosling.
‘It’s an attitude of mind, which we have to get across the whole of our system,’ he added.
‘I look forward to working with Public Health England to make sure we take the whole of the community with us.’