Government urged to reverse public health cuts

The Health Foundation and the King’s Fund have called for a “clear and urgent” commitment to restore the public health grant to its original level in order to allow local authorities such as Blackburn with Darwen Council to deliver vital services to protect and improve health.

Analysis by the organisations shows that the grant, which currently amounts to £3.1bn a year, is now £850m lower in real terms than it was when it was initially allocated four years ago, and faces a further real-terms cut of £50m next year under provisional spending plans, representing a total real-terms cut of 25 per cent.

With population growth factored in, they say £1bn will be needed nationally to restore funding to 2015-16 levels.

Cllr Ian Hudspeth, chairman of the Local Government Association’s Community Wellbeing Board, said: "This analysis echoes our own calls for public health funding reductions to be reversed, in order to help people live longer, healthier and happier lives

"Councils are determined to maintain vital public health services, but the reality is that many local authorities are having to make difficult decisions on these key services.

"Further reductions to the public health budget reinforces the view that central government sees prevention services as nice-to-do but ultimately non-essential. Interventions to tackle teenage pregnancy, air quality, child obesity, sexually transmitted infections and substance misuse cannot be seen as an added extra for health budgets.

“Local authorities were eager to pick up the mantle of public health in 2013 but many will now feel that they have been handed all of the responsibility but without the appropriate resources to do so.

“Many councils will be forced to take tough decisions about which services have to be scaled back, or stopped altogether, to plug funding gaps.

"It is vital that the Government uses the forthcoming Spending Review to deliver truly sustainable funding for public health in local government."