Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what data his Department holds on the effectiveness of preventive healthcare (a) programs and (b) interventions at (i) increasing average life expectancy and (b) reducing the incidence of preventable diseases in the last 10 years; and whether his Department has conducted research on the effectiveness of individual preventive healthcare (A) programs and (B) interventions.

The Department is taking action to improve healthy life expectancy (HLE), improve average life expectancy (LE) and reduce incidence of preventable disease. We monitor the impact of our programmes and interventions on their target metrics, and we are working towards understanding their impact on HLE as part of our work to drive progress on our Levelling Up health mission.

On 24 January 2023, we announced our plan to publish the Major Conditions Strategy. This strategy will explore how we can tackle the key drivers of ill-health in England. The strategy will focus on six major groups of conditions, namely cancers, mental health, cardiovascular disease (including stroke and diabetes), dementia, chronic respiratory diseases, and musculoskeletal disorders, that account for approximately 60% of ill-health and early death in England.

There is a wide range of published research and evidence on preventative healthcare interventions, which informs both the development of policy and advice issues to health services including by the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence. In 2017, PHE published the Health Economics Evidence Resource, available at the following link: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/health-economics-evidence-resource

This summarised the evidence on the cost-effectiveness of various prevention interventions used by local authorities.

Through the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR), the Department has funded research on preventative healthcare interventions. For example, the NIHR Health and Social Care Delivery Research Programme funded study ‘What happens after an NHS Health Check? A survey and realist review’ has recently reported. The NIHR welcomes funding applications for research into any aspect of human health, including preventative healthcare interventions. Applications are subject to peer review and judged in open competition, with awards being made on the basis of the importance of the topic to patients and health and care services, value for money and scientific quality. NIHR funded research is published in its journals library which is available at the following link:

https://www.journalslibrary.nihr.ac.uk