Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether his Department is taking steps to increase funding for preventative healthcare.

The Autumn Statement makes available up to an additional £8 billion investment for the NHS and adult social care in England in 2024-25. In addition to funding confirmed at the last Spending Review, this means the NHS resource budget will receive a £38.9 billion cash increase over this Parliament. Local authorities in England receive a public health grant to support their statutory duty to improve the health of their population. At the Spending Review 2021, we considered the need for local authority public health funding and confirmed that the public health grant would 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 in start for life support and drug and alcohol treatment services.

The Government recognises that preventative interventions can deliver significant health benefits for individuals and reduce the burden of preventable illness on the NHS. In each of 42 areas across England, Integrated Care Systems (ICS) bring together health and care organisations around a core purpose including improving population health and tackling health disparities. For each ICS, an integrated care strategy describes how locally assessed health needs will be met. Statutory guidance makes clear that prevention should be considered when preparing these strategies.