Towards a healthier Scotland : a white paper on health / the Scottish Office Department of Health.

  • Great Britain. Scottish Office. Department of Health.
Date:
1999
Catalogue details

Licence: Open Government Licence

Credit: Towards a healthier Scotland : a white paper on health / the Scottish Office Department of Health. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    77/84 (page 65)
    Towards a Healthier Scotland The Government will make available a Scottish resource pack which will assist agencies to plan and implement co-ordinated programmes to support children and their families in fulfilling their potential. A demonstration project - “Starting Well” - will develop and disseminate best practice in supporting children’s health from pre-conception through to school entry. Health boards should commission measures, including public opinion polls, to ensure full dissemination of their proposals and gauge the support for water fluoridation. Water authorities will be advised that, where local views firmly favour fluoridation, they should focus, thereafter, on issues of technical feasibility, not on the arguments for or against fluoridation. The Government will fund pilot schemes to provide fluoridated milk in rural areas where fluoridation of the public water supply is not feasible. The Government will commission, and fund, the develooment of a dental disease ‘prevention from birth’ programme, involving registration with a dentist, dental education for all new parents, toothbrushing with a fluoride toothpaste for infants and advice on how to reduce sugar in the diet of infants. The demonstration project - “Starting Well” - will include dental and oral health and hygiene within its remit and will link closely with the other initiatives to address dental and oral health. A demonstration project - “Healthy Respect”- will develop best practice in the promotion of sexual health and the prevention of unwanted teenage pregnancies. It will build on the principles of the Scottish Needs Assessment Programme's overview of teenage pregnancy in Scotland. Funding will be provided to enable the voluntary sector's expertise to be made available to many more schools in Scotland and so promote a more informed and responsible approach to sexual matters on the part of young people. Heart disease will be a leading priority for the NHS in Scotland. A demonstration project - “The Heart of Scotland” - will develop an inter- sectoral community-based approach to the prevention of heart disease, recognising that many of the measures will also help to avoid cancer and stroke. HEBS will step up its national media campaign to address the factors which