This policy brief explores how primary care and public health can be brought together to improve the health of patients and populations. It describes the types of initiatives that have been undertaken; provides examples of such initiatives in Europe and beyond; and summarises the factors that can help to enhance or hinder the integration of primary care and public health.
In 2015 the What Works Centre for Wellbeing became part of the What Works Network across the UK in the academic, charity, public, and private sectors. The network has created approaches to understand, measure and improve wellbeing in a range of contexts. This report updates the Commission on Wellbeing and Policy with evidence-informed priority policy areas. It outlines policy and practice changes across the UK, and what that means for government, business and civil society in post-Brexit Britain. The report sets out: what wellbeing impacts look like in different contexts; what works to improve wellbeing; and how to use a wellbeing lens to create more relevant, effective policy.
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The Health Foundation report exploring health care use by the top 5 per cent of users of primary and secondary care services by cost.
• Despite the increasing financial pressure on the NHS over the past decades, there has been little research to understand the distribution and concentration of health care costs across the population.
• This paper explores for the first time the distribution of both primary and secondary health care costs in England, including GP-prescribed drug cost. Identifying high-cost, high-need patients and examining the way in which they use health care services might help to design initiatives to reduce costs or to improve efficiency.
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This series of reports summarises the evidence for the effectiveness of universal approaches to improving children and young people’s mental health and wellbeing. The documents are intended for strategic and operational leads, working on children and young people’s mental health. The report of the findings of a Special Interest Group summarises the approach, findings and recommendations.
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The United Kingdom has some of the highest drug death rates in Europe, particularly in Scotland. This Report shows how the rate of drug-related deaths has risen to the scale of a public health emergency. It recommends a radical change in approach to UK drugs policy, moving from the current criminal justice approach to a health approach, with responsibility for drugs policy moving from the Home Office to the Department of Health and Social Care suggesting a health focused and harm reduction approach would not only benefit those who are using drugs but reduce harm to and the costs for their wider communities.
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A healthy foundation for the future: the final report of the young people’s future health inquiry from the Health Foundation summarises the work of a two-year inquiry into young people’s future health. It urges the government to overhaul policies across housing, transport and education and adopt a whole government approach to secure the future health of today’s young people. Key recommendations include:
• a government review of the impact of the exam system and the ‘teach to test’ culture on the mental health of young people.
• significant reforms to the private rental sector including developing minimum standards for landlords and greater support for ‘build to rent’ schemes so that young people can put down roots and feel a sense of ‘home’.
• ending the postcode lottery in access to discounted and free transport for students and young people seeking employment.
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This report reveals that health inequities in many of the 53 countries in the WHO European Region remain either the same or have worsened despite governments’ attempts to address them. The report identifies five key risk factors that are holding many children, young people, women and men back from achieving good health and leading safe and decent lives. Key findings on current health status and trends across the Region show a significant health divide.
• While average life expectancy across the Region increased to 82.0 years for women and 76.2 years for men by 2016, there are still significant health inequities between social groups: a woman’s life expectancy is cut by up to 7 years and a man’s by up to 15 years if they are in the most disadvantaged groups.
• Almost twice as many women and men in the least affluent 20% of the population report illnesses that limit their freedom to carry out daily activities, compared to those in the most affluent 20%.
• In 45 of 48 countries providing data, women with the fewest years of education report higher rates of poor or fair health compared to women with the most years of education; the pattern is the same for men in 47 of the 48 countries.
• Where you live influences how long and how well you are able to live: trends show that in almost 75% of countries surveyed, the differences in life expectancy between the most and least advantaged regions have not changed in over a decade, and in some cases have worsened.
• In the most deprived areas, 4% more babies do not survive their first year compared to babies born in more affluent areas.
• Health gaps between socioeconomic groups widen as people age: 6% more girls and 5% more boys report poor health in the least affluent households compared to those in the most affluent households. This gap rises to 19% more women and 17% more men during working age, and peaks among those aged 65 and over with 22% more women and 21% more men reporting poor health in the least affluent households compared to the most affluent households.
• The accumulated poor health of those with fewer economic and social resources when entering later life predicts their higher risk of poverty and social exclusion, loss of independent living and more rapidly declining health.
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This is an analysis of UK healthcare spending relative to comparable countries, using data produced to the international definitions of the System of Health Accounts. It shows that in 2017, the UK spent £2,989 per person on healthcare, which was around the median for members of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).
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International Longevity Centre – UK report that argues that the UK’s unprecedented population ageing poses a set of daunting, yet not insurmountable, challenges for policymakers, institutions and health care providers to design better solutions fit for an ageing society. It calls for health policy reforms that focus on preventing, rather than curing disease to enable people to stay active and healthy for longer. It also calls for programmes to enable older workers to remain in the labour market for longer through retraining opportunities and more flexible working patterns, and highlights the pivotal role innovation could play, including, for instance, robotics to help fill production demands for manual labour, or better housing and transport design to facilitate independence and continued employment for older people.
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International Longevity Centre UK, March 2019
The MARQUE (Managing Agitation and Raising Quality of Life in Dementia) project is the largest ever study involving people living in care homes. The study examined critical issues for people living with dementia and their paid and unpaid carers, particularly around the challenges of agitation. This report summarises a number of key findings from the study and makes recommendations for how public policy should respond.
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