Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what recent assessment his Department has made of the effect of changes in the level of public health budgets on patients’ health.

Local authorities will receive over £3.1 billion in 2019/20 for use on public health. It is for local authorities themselves to determine how best to use these resources based on their assessment of local need and with regard to their statutory duties. This funding is in addition to what the National Health Service spends on preventative interventions such as immunisation and screening, including over £1.2 billion on national public health functions in 2018/19.

Public Health England monitors and publishes data on trends for the wide range of indicators of public health set out in the Public Health Outcomes Framework. Most are stable or improving. The framework can be found at the following link:

https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/public-health-outcomes-framework