26.10.17
NHS Providers: Public health crucial to success of accountable care models
Public health being promoted and improved will be crucial as NHS bodies move towards accountable care, a new report released today by NHS Providers has argued.
The report, ‘Public health: everyones’ business?’ is part of the series ‘Provider Voices,’ which aims to promote the views of leaders from a range of service providers, on key issues faced by the NHS.
Featuring 12 interviews with trust leaders across the NHS, academics, system leaders and local authority bosses, the report looks at what organisations think about public health and its importance as trusts move towards integrated models of care like STPs ACOs.
NHS Providers has reported finding a shared understanding of the importance of public health, and its accompanying challenges.
Although the views were diverse, there were common key points identified by most of the interviewees:
- The promotion of the public health role whilst moving towards accountable care, and the impact of sustainability and transformation partnerships on this;
- The challenge of constrained funding seen in both local government and the NHS;
- The need to embrace digital technology to improve efficiency and the experience of service users;
- Developing the role of the public health clinician;
- The importance of a condition specific approach to address determinants of health inequalities.
Saffron Cordery, director of policy and strategy at NHS Providers, said: “A precondition to good public health is socio-economic prosperity, and equity: individuals and communities being enabled to access the support they need to thrive.”
Cordery went on to explain that public health cannot be delivered by any single institution or individual.
She suggested looking to the EU for ways to address the questions raised in the report: “one of the underlying themes to emerge is that public health is everybody’s business in different ways.
“A form of subsidiarity – operating at the appropriate level, closest to the people – holds water here.
“National bodies, councils, trusts, the third sector all have a different relationship to the individual. They operate at different levels and in different ways.
“It’s about identifying the most appropriate.”
Top Image: Chris Radburn PA Wire
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