Cuts To Balance The Reduction In The Public Health Grant For 2019/20

Overview

Tell Us Your Public Health Priorities After Government Budget Cut

The Health and Social Care Act (2012) transferred the bulk of public health functions to local authorities. The Council is responsible for improving the health of Lewisham residents as laid out by the Association of Directors of Public Health.

The Council receives a Public Health Grant from the Department of Health to meet these responsibilities. In Lewisham the grant is £24,325,000 for 2018/19. 

• We spend £7,479,124 of the grant on services for children and young people, for example health visiting, school health services, and our Young People’s Health and Wellbeing Service.
• We spend £5,594,296 of the grant on services for sexual health, for example sexual health clinics, HIV testing, and contraception in GPs and pharmacies.
• We spend £3,993,100 of the grant on substance misuse services, for example residential rehabilitation, support to vulnerable drug users to move toward recovery, and support in the community to sustain this.
• We spend £356,587 of the grant on delivery of the statutory NHS Healthchecks programme, offering free Healthchecks to residents 40-74 to identify cardiovascular risks such as heart disease.
• We spend £571,494 of the grant on Lewisham Stop Smoking Service supporting 1000 people to quit smoking every year and providing specialist targeted support to high risk groups including pregnant women and those with other diseases.
• We spend £296,211 of the grant on services to promote healthy weight and physical activity, including weight management programmes including the Lewisham Healthy Walks programme.

The remainder of the grant is spent on a range of things including wider services to improve public health, such as children’s centres, and other functions including grants to community groups, data analysis and public health input into Council policymaking.

For 2019/20 the government has cut Lewisham’s public health grant by £642,000 and we want to know what you think about our plans to deal with this.  

Since 2015 the Government has cut Lewisham’s public health budget by £4million - around 15 per cent of our total budget.

Proposals to balance the cuts have been developed by the Lewisham Public Health team led by Dr Danny Ruta, Lewisham Director of Public Health. Public Health specialists for each area looked at a range of different cuts and their impacts on Public Health outcomes. A process of prioritisation led by Dr Ruta was then undertaken to identify in order the cuts with the lowest impact.

These cuts will mean service reductions, and this survey is looking for your views to inform how they are targeted and implemented.

Healthwatch Lewisham are there to support individuals and groups to ensure a wide a range of voices are heard in the consultation process and that no-one is excluded from the process. If you or someone you know needs support to respond to the consultation, please contact Healthwatch Lewisham on 020 8690 5012 or through the contact form on their website.

This survey closes on 7^th November 2018.