What does this mean for libraries?
- Libraries already support access to the evidence base, and this will be of vital importance if prevention is to be underpinned by research findings and best practice.
- Library and Knowledge Services (LKS) could also offer support for researchers to get findings published, and this could be around selecting suitable journals to publish in, help with writing, or subscriptions to open access journals to allow publication without article processing charges.
- Ideally, local public health teams would have full access to local NHS LKS to compliment those services provided by Public Health England. Currently only 60% of local authority public health teams have arrangements in place with their local NHS LKS.
Source: Department of Health and Social Care
Date of publication: July 2019
Summary of driver: This consultation looks ahead to the 2020s and outlines a range of possible measures to promote health. Some of these involve technologies such as genomics and wearable devices for health tracking, but it also involves more traditional measures such as extending the fluoridation of water, improving access to smoking cessation services, and clearer nutritional labelling of food. It also considers threats such as antimicrobial resistant and decreased immunisation rates.
It refers back to the Long Term Plan and its emphasis on prevention. One of the initiatives mentioned in the Long Term Plan was social prescribing, and this consultation recommends that there are 1,000 link workers recruited by 2021 to allow 900,000 people to benefit from social prescribing by 2024.
The consultation does note that all this change in prevention needs to be underpinned by high-quality research, and the aim is to make the UK the world leader in public health and prevention research.
Tagged: Public health, Social prescribing