17 May 2011 : Column 314

Public Health Observatories

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—(Mr Newmark.)

10.54 pm

Grahame M. Morris (Easington) (Lab): I am grateful to have this opportunity to raise the very important subject of the future of our public health observatories, which are an integral part of the national health service. They are responsible for public health intelligence work—collecting the evidence base and directing how different agencies work to improve public health. It might be useful if I give a definition of public health. The best definition I have been able to find is one from the World Health Organisation’s expert committee on public health administration that was published as long ago as 1952. It defined public health as

“the science and art of preventing disease, prolonging life, and promoting health and efficiency through organized community efforts for the sanitation of the environment, the control of communicable infections, the education of the individual in personal hygiene, the organization of medical and nursing services for early diagnosis and preventive treatment of disease, and the development of the social machinery to ensure for every individual a standard of living adequate for the maintenance of health, so organizing these benefits as to enable every citizen to realize his birthright of health and longevity.”

The Association of Public Health Observatories represents and co-ordinates a network of 12 public health observatories in Scotland, Wales, England, Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland. That body brings together joint public health intelligence work from all its organisations across the United Kingdom and Ireland and also works in collaboration with its counterparts across Europe. Without that range of high-quality and trustworthy knowledge, expertise and support from public health observatories, much of the work carried out by practitioners and, indeed, local authorities, policy makers and the wider community, would be carried out in the dark. That would, without doubt, result in a less focused and less effective service delivery. All that makes public health observatories central to both local and central Government health policy and decision making.

Public health observatories were set up to monitor the state of the public’s health and the causes of poor health and health inequalities, with the information being used by a range of organisations involved in providing health care, including the NHS. The White Paper, “Saving Lives: Our Healthier Nation”, which was published by the Department of Health in 1999, proposed the establishment of the public health observatories that were then set up in 2000 by the Labour Government. The Association of Public Health Observatories was also established in 2000. That umbrella group provides a link between regional public health observatories and national arrangements. It comprises representatives from all the regional public health observatories, the Department of Health and other partners, and one concern that I wish to raise is the fact that its funding has been removed this year.

I hope that the Minister will accept that improving the knowledge and evidence base behind health care was a key element of the previous Government’s policy and was instrumental in making progress in tackling health inequalities. The changes outlined by the Health Secretary in the Health and Social Care Bill move us