Public Health White Paper

John Pugh Excerpts

Tuesday 30th November 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Lansley]

No; the hon. Lady should not believe what she reads in newspapers. The Education Secretary is not scrapping the school sport partnerships; he is providing the resources directly to schools so that they can make the decisions on how they promote sport. From my point of view, I have always made it clear—this has been the burden of my conversation with my colleagues—that we are already supporting school sports clubs in secondary schools through Change4Life. We intend to maintain that and to expand the role of Change4Life, linking in to primary schools so that we stimulate activity and exercise for young people overall. That is entirely complementary to how schools, using their own resources, stimulate sport. With regard to competitive sport, they will be assisted additionally through infrastructure funding for the new school Olympics.

[Dr John Pugh (Southport) (LD)]

I congratulate the Secretary of State on his long-standing and personal commitment to public health as the best way of dealing with health inequalities. How do we stop GPs operating in silos and prescribing pills where they might prescribe exercise? How do we join up the pieces?

[Mr Lansley]

I am grateful for that question. The answer has two parts. First, the general practice-led commissioning consortiums will be members of the new health and well-being boards in local authorities to which I referred. They will participate in the joint strategic needs assessments and strategies through the commissioning framework, the outcomes framework and the quality and outcomes framework, which applies directly to general practice. The less we focus on processes, and the more we focus on outcomes for patients, the more general practice will be focused on preventive solutions, because they will deliver good outcomes at relatively low cost. To that extent, the preventive agenda in general practice and community health services will be incentivised through a focus on outcomes.