By Nick Mann | 2 November 2011
The government has been urged to clarify the role councils will play in its public health reforms, after MPs today called for more certainty over how the proposals will work in practice.
In a report on the reform proposals, the Commons health select committee ‘broadly’ welcomed plans to increase councils’ responsibility for public health.
But it raised concerns over how their work would relate to other bodies involved, such as Public Health England, the executive agency to be established in April 2013 to bring together disparate public health functions.
The Local Government Association echoed the MPs’ call for more detail on the proposals. David Rogers, chair of the LGA’s community wellbeing board, said: ‘The committee supports our view that there needs to be better co-ordination in the system as a whole.
‘The current lack of clarity creates a sense that people know big changes are coming but do not yet know all the details. With so many “unknowns” and important parts of the jigsaw missing. it is difficult for councils to take decisive action and forge ahead with local plans.’
The select committee report also said it was important that Public Health England was given a clear leadership role to deal with public health emergencies.
Committee chair Stephen Dorrell said: ‘Public Health England must be visibly and operationally independent of ministers. It must demonstrate that it is able to, and regularly does, speak “truth unto power”.’
He added: ‘Just as PHE needs to be visibly independent of central government, the director of public health in each locality needs to be a chief officer of the local authority with a statutory duty to address the full public health agenda within the locality.’
This call was welcomed by the NHS Confederation. Deputy director of policy Jo Webber said: ‘The committee is absolutely right to stress that Public Health England and directors of public health must be independent from government.
‘During a major public emergency such as a flu pandemic, it is vital to reassure the public that the advice they receive is authoritative and independent of politicians.’
Under the plans, the health secretary will be given an explicit statutory duty to take steps to protect the public from dangers to health. The committee welcomed this new duty, but stressed that the health secretary’s legal responsibility should also extend to reducing inequalities in relation to public health.
It also sounded a note of caution over reported plans to close three of the regional Public Health Observatories, which provide information and data to support public health bodies. The MPs called on ministers to clarify plans for the future of the Observatories as a ‘matter of urgency’ to ensure this ‘important resource’ was not lost.
