Public Health White Paper

Fiona Mactaggart Excerpts

Tuesday 30th November 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Lansley]

Yes, I do. My hon. Friend is absolutely right. The structure proposed in the NHS reform White Paper in July was to bring local authorities and the NHS together to undertake joint strategic needs assessments leading to a combined strategy. Understanding the causes of ill health, and understanding where ill health is occurring and where the greatest areas of unmet need are in a community, will impact positively both on NHS commissioning and on local authorities.

[Fiona Mactaggart (Slough) (Lab)]

I welcome the proposal to give public health responsibility to local government, but will the Secretary of State assure the House that his intention is to build on proven successful initiatives, such as the family nurse partnership that works with teen mothers in my constituency, and health advocates? In contrast to GPs who, when offered an opportunity to give out membership of slimming clubs, managed to give only one in six months, health advocates managed to gain about 2,000 regular participants in slimming clubs, thus helping to deal with the obesity problem in Slough.

[Mr Lansley]

I am grateful to the hon. Lady. At least I know that she supports the proposal to transfer the responsibility to local government—not something I discovered from the reply of the right hon. Member for Wentworth and Dearne (John Healey). The short answer is that I have already announced that over the next four years we will double the number of family nurse partnerships, so we shall indeed support them. More than that, as Sir Michael Marmot made clear, it is vital that we combine the targeted support that the FNPs can give and a restored universal health visiting service to help every family as they start out.