Memorandum by the Department of Public
Health, University of Oxford (WP 99)
I am writing from the Department of Public Health,
University of Oxford. We welcome the Choosing Health White Paper
and the government's commitment to improving the public's health,
with particular emphasis on research and development.
In Oxford, we are committed to the development
of innovative public health work to create the evidence base on
effective intervention to improve health and reduce inequalities.
We are also interested in finding ways to increase the capacity
of academic public health to redress the problems highlighted
by Sir Derek Wanless in his reports.
Whilst the proposals move us in the right direction,
and we are pleased to see additional resources, we need to make
the most effective use of R&D resources and the Innovations
Fund. We believe that achieving this will require coordination
of resources, part of which can be achieved by developing academic
networks for public health at a regional level, not just creating
the academic networks as proposed. This would create mechanisms
that are transparent and engage all areas of the NHS and other
agencies whose services impact on health, especially local authorities,
to respond at national and local level to important public health
issues.
We believe the development of regional academic
public health networks should be part of the infrastructure, if
the opportunities of Choosing Health are to be fully realised.
This would provide greater emphasis within the implementation
of the White Paper to promote academic and service departments
working together, not only for research but also to build up much
needed academic public health capacity.
February 2005
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