Shadow Minister for Communities and Local Government and North Wales Assembly Member, Mark Isherwood AM, has called on the Welsh Government to promote an effective partnership between Local Government and Public Health Bodies in Wales
Speaking in the Welsh Parliament yesterday, Mr Isherwood referred to England, where the main statutory duties for public health were conferred on local authorities in 2013 and positive outcomes were reported, and asked the Minister for Housing and Local Government whether the Welsh Government would consider adopting such a model in Wales.
He said:
“Although Public Health Wales provides specialist public health support to the 22 local authorities in Wales, responsibility for public health in Wales is shared amongst all the NHS bodies, with leadership provided by Public Health Wales. In contrast, in England, the main statutory duties for public health were conferred on local authorities in 2013, with responsibility in local authorities for improving the health of their local population and for public health services, including most sexual health services and services aimed at reducing drug and alcohol misuse.
“I recently had a meeting with Executive Members and Officers of a local authority in Wales, who told me that in England, as a consequence, there'd been a better focus and scrutiny for the same resources. A subsequent report to the launch of this in England by the independent health and social care charity and think tank, King's Fund, said, 'The transfer of public health functions and staff from the NHS to local authorities has gone, in most cases, remarkably smoothly, with directors of public health confident of better health outcomes in the future and reporting positive experiences of working in local authorities’.
“Without prejudging this, what consideration or what review role does the Welsh Government have in considering, on a neutral basis, on a non-judgmental basis, what works best in an outcome-related manner and looking at whether the systems across the border are delivering better, as was alleged to me?”.
Responding, the Minister said: “In general, we've been using the regional partnership boards to achieve the same result, because it's not just about transferring functions from one part of the public sector to the other; it's about getting the whole public sector to work together in harmony to deliver a set of mutually agreed outcomes and a shared vision. So, it's a relatively new system. We've had some reports done into it. We're about, in the Local Government Bill, to put a different regional working arrangement in place, which local authorities and health authorities and public health and other public bodies will be able to take advantage of, if they want to, on a not-one-size-fits-all basis. So, if a local authority you're talking to thinks that's a better route, they will have a vehicle to do that”.
Mr Isherwood added: “Once again, the Welsh Government is pushing ahead with its own model regardless, rather than monitoring outcomes and learning from practice elsewhere. As in England, Wales needs public health directors driving better focus and scrutiny, and influencing local authority decisions well beyond the confines of their statutory service budgets”.
