Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment he has made of the adequacy of integrated care system and public health grant funding in the context of strengthening population health; and if he will make an assessment of the potential merits of combining those funding streams.

At the Spending Review 2021, we considered the need for local authority public funding and confirmed that the public health grant will increase over the settlement period. In 2022/23, the grant increased by 2.81% to £3.417 billion. This is in addition to targeted investment through local Government to improve the start for life offer and drug and alcohol treatment services.

The spending review provided a record settlement for the National Health Service to £165.9 billion in 2024/25, up from £123.7 billion in 2019/20 and the Government is investing additional £3.3 billion in each 2023/24 and 2024/25 to support our health and care system to manage the effects of Coronavirus.

Section 75 of the NHS Act 2006 allows for pooling funds between NHS and local authorities. We are undertaking a review of section 75 which will include consideration of public health functions.