Health inequalities. Volume II, Written evidence / House of Commons, Health Committee.

  • Great Britain. Parliament. House of Commons. Health Committee
Date:
c2008
Catalogue details

Licence: Open Government Licence

Credit: Health inequalities. Volume II, Written evidence / House of Commons, Health Committee. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    67. LAAs incentivise action across local partnerships to deliver change on the ground, particularly improved health for the most disadvantaged. Reducing health inequalities is central to LAAs; currently all LAAs include the indicator which, while not being mandatory, remains part of the new LAAs from next June. 68. Health improvement and inequalities indicators are included in the National Indicator Set. DH has commissioned a major programme from the Improvement and Development Agency for local government to develop the capacity of local government to work in partnership with the NHS. 69. Monitoring delivery against LAAs is at Strategic Health Authority (SHA) and Government Office (GO) level. A Memorandum of Understanding [between whom?] has set the foundations to better align planning and service objectives to drive further improvements in health inequalities. 70. DH has commissioned a major programme from the Improvement and Development Agency for local government to develop further the capacity of local government to work in partnership with the NHS. Working with communities 71. The Communities and Local Government-funded Neighbourhood Renewal Fund (NRF) and New Deal for Communities (NDCs) programmes promote practical partnership through a series of locally led initiatives to tackle priorities, such as addressing poor health as well as education, crime, worklessness, housing and liveability issues. 72. The NRF provides flexible funding for England’s most deprived local authorities enabling local partners to improve services, including those relating to health. There are close links with the spearhead areas—61 out of 70 of them also in receipt of NRF. 73. The NDC programme, launched in January 2001, provides for 39 of the poorest neighbourhoods with the resources and support to tackle their problems and regenerate their communities, including through working with other agencies, notably PCTs. 74. NDCs have achieved modest improvements in reducing the number of people smoking (down 3 percentage points from 40% to 37%) and the number of people who feel their health is not good (a 3 percentage points reduction from 23% to 20%) between 2001-02 and 2005-06. Working with others 75. The third and private sectors have a role to play in tackling health inequalities through Good Corporate Citizen and other programmes. The third sector is also involved in running Sure Start Children’s Centres. 76. Schools play a part, including through the National Healthy Schools Programme. Local programmes give priority to schools serving the most deprived communities and this focus is reinforced by the funding formula, which provides local programmes with additional funding based on free school meals entitlement. NATIONAL COORDINATION FOR THE TARGET [ISSUE: the effectiveness of the Department of Health in co-ordinating policy with other government departments, in order to meets its Public Service Agreement targets for reducing inequalities ] KEY MESSAGE—effective partnerships have been in place since 2002 and have been sustained by work around the 2010 target 77. 12 government departments subscribed to the national health inequalities strategy (the Programme for Action). It included 82 departmental commitments that would both meet departments’ own priorities and contribute to reducing health inequalities. The forthcoming 2007 Status Report is expected to show that most of these commitments have been delivered. The strategy was built on the co-operation developed through the Treasury led cross-cutting review and the partnership is sustained by active collaboration in pursuit of the target, such as through recent target reviews. Action on health inequalities has been overseen by successive cabinet sub-committees. Working with DCSF 78. An example is through DH work with DCSF on a wide range of policies and programmes, including PSA targets on under-18 conceptions, childhood obesity and child and adolescent mental health services (CAMHS). This partnership extends to other important activities to improve children’s and young people’s health such as the National Healthy Schools Programme, development of Sure Start Children’s Centres, emotional health and psychological wellbeing, and Family Nurse Partnerships.