As local responsibility for delivering public health shifts back from Primary Care Trusts to local government, charity Sustrans this week joined others in the health sector to debate issues with public health ministers from both sides of the political divide.
At the parliamentary reception Anne Milton MP, Minister for Public Health emphasised the challenges faced in public health highlighting that some of the most obvious solutions such as walking and cycling can often be entrenched in much wider issues which need to be tackled holistically.
Dianne Abbott MP, Shadow Minister for Public Health, underlined the important role for national government during and following the transition from PCTs to local government. She called for joined-up working across local services,
especially through the schools and housing systems. And, while public health was born out of a need to tackle sewage systems in London, today's focus has to be on bringing down obesity levels. She cites the anti-smoking campaign as showing how legislation, coupled with public awareness and education, can bring about behaviour change at a massive level.
Lord Hunt of Kings Heath, President of the Royal Society of Public Health and Frank Atherton, President of the Association of Directors of Public Health both underlined their support for the public health’s return to local government but highlighted the need for national government to play a strong role in monitoring performance, ensuring capability and identifying weaknesses in the system. Both agreed that public health is a cross-disciplinary issue and walking and cycling provide clear examples of a holistic approach to health and wellbeing.
It was suggested that active travel could be used as one of the performance indicators in the Department of Health’s outcomes framework due later this year.
Sustrans’ Health Director Philip Insall concludes; “Sustrans' experience of local partnerships to promote active living has been tremendously successful: our walking and cycling projects have on their own met the national target of two million people more active before 2012. But with the cost of obesity still rising, set to reach a staggering £50 billion by 2050, we must invest to reverse the trend.
"Walking and cycling are central to a preventative approach to health, and also bring benefits to the public purse, the environment, dwindling energy supplies and the community as a whole. To receive these benefits it is critical that both transport and health departments, at the national as well as the local level, set clear objectives to increase levels of active travel and guarantee investment in proportion with those objectives.”
The Sustrans website - www.sustrans.org.uk - has a free online map service to discover how to get around everyday on foot or by bike. Search for local or national routes, plot journeys, or find what the local area has to offer from schools, supermarkets and local landmarks to car clubs, bus stops and bike shops.
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