Obesity: Food and Diet
Ann Davies Excerpts(1 week, 5 days ago)
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Ann Davies (Caerfyrddin) (PC)
I commend the hon. Member for Stroud (Dr Opher) on bringing forward this important debate. It is refreshing that Members on both sides of the Chamber are all agreeing, and trying to find a way forward.
Figures show that more than a quarter of children aged four and five in Wales are measured as being overweight, with one in 10 being obese. While those figures are hugely concerning, the factors for obesity, as has been said, are incredibly complex. They include the impact of poverty, behaviours resulting from technological advances, and unhealthy foods, to name just a few. As hon. Members will know, health is a devolved matter in Wales. Obesity is rightly recognised as one of the most significant public health challenges, both in Cardiff and here in Westminster. At the start of this Senedd term, the then Cabinet Secretary for Health and Social Care, Eluned Morgan, said:
“I can give you an absolute commitment…I’m absolutely determined that this is an area that we should focus on.”
Four or five years on from that commitment, campaigners are raising the alarm. Obesity Alliance Cymru has said that without urgent action to combat rates of obesity in Wales, our NHS will likely face additional costs of £465 million in Wales by 2050. It is therefore vital that health policy on obesity is receptive to the link between the prevalence of poverty and physical and mental wellbeing. That means resources to promote physical activity and improve health education, and more time for physical education. Plaid Cymru is proud to have secured free school meals for all primary school children in Wales. At the heart of the policy is the belief that each and every child should have access to hot nutritious meals, especially when so many rely on their school lunch as their most substantial meal of the day.
To that end, initiatives are already in place that can achieve the high standard of food produce that we all want for our constituents. Where I live in Llanarthne—it is a small rural village in the middle of nowhere, but it is the heart of Wales—the council-owned Bremenda Isaf farm has been taken over to produce vegetables for the public plate as part of the Bwyd Sir Gâr food partnership. The project proves not only that we can still achieve shorter food supply chains, which are useful for food security and resilience, but that local and Government-led farm to fork initiatives can work successfully both to support local farming and to ensure better quality, tasty food for our children and residents.
The Bremenda Isaf project could be an example to emulate across the whole UK, using public land to produce public food. The UK Government’s shared prosperity fund, which is being cut to £900 million in 2025-26 before being scrapped, was influential in making that initiative happen. I reiterate my call for any wider funding reforms to consider the importance of need-based funding, and for all funding allocations for Wales to be decided in Wales.
Research by Nesta, an innovation foundation, argues that we can reduce obesity and improve population health by improving our food environment. That means looking at the price of healthy options, portion sizes, advertising and promotions, and convenience. In other words, a holistic approach is the way forward. As hon. Members have set out, policy ideas have already been developed to put that in motion. New ideas and initiatives have challenges, but for more effective decision making, we desperately need a different mindset. Under-resourcing these initiatives will inevitably mean higher future spending on health. Now is the time to look at our local communities and learn from them.
Several hon. Members rose—
Community Pharmacies: Devon and the South-west
Ann Davies Excerpts(1 month, 2 weeks ago)
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Rachel Gilmour
I agree with both courses of action, and I thank my hon. Friend very much for that important and interesting contribution.
The increase in workload is not sustainable, but that workload is too important not to receive proper backing from central Government as they make headway on their ambition to create what they have referred to, on occasion, as a neighbourhood health service.
Being a Devonian, I would like to go through things logically. First, I will talk about prescriptions. In Tiverton and Minehead, each pharmacy dispenses an average of 7,540 prescriptions every month. Across all 15 pharmacies, that is an average of 113,175 prescriptions each month across the constituency. That is 20,000 more prescriptions each month than the House of Commons Library says there are people in the entire constituency. Prescriptions that provide life-altering medications for constituents are the front door to the work of pharmacies. They are what most people think pharmacies do most often, but our pharmacies do a lot more work in our villages, towns and cities.
Ann Davies (Caerfyrddin) (PC)
It matters not whether the community pharmacy is in Devon or my constituency of Caerfyrddin; drug tariffs, which put such a strain on our pharmacists, need to be reviewed, and an uplift is long overdue. Would the hon. Member agree that we need to highlight that financial shortfall to the Government, and that something needs to be done immediately?
Rachel Gilmour
I agree that we need to do that as often as possible. I will move on to the workload. This is not a typical example: along with prescriptions, in Tiverton and Minehead each pharmacy conducted 398 flu vaccines on average during the 2023-24 season, higher than the national average of 355.
If Members are unfortunate enough to need their blood pressure checked, they can go to a pharmacy. Across the UK, 930,000 hypertension blood pressure checks are undertaken in just one year. With public health as a driving mission for the Government, I would hope that this was something they could support wherever it takes place. Pharmacies also offer a range of other clinical and public health services, including providing flu and covid-19 vaccinations, and if further services were to be commissioned from community pharmacies in the context of sustainable core funding, the sector could do even more to improve access to primary care.