Categories
Healthy Settings Licensing Planning Well-Being

Population well-being portal

By e-Learning for Healthcare (2019)

The Population Wellbeing Portal is free to access by anyone who can positively impact public health and wellbeing.

The Portal offers free access to education, training and professional development resources, to help deliver improvements in public health and prevention.  Providing a central location for numerous e-learning resources, reading material, guidance, toolkits and videos, factsheets and many more resources relating to population health.

The Portal brings together material from multiple sources. This includes resources from Health Education England (HEE), Public Health England (PHE); the Academy for Public Health for London and Kent, Surrey, Sussex, the Faculty of Public Health as well as many others.  It links with All Our Health, PHE’framework of evidence to guide healthcare professionals in preventing illness, protecting health and promoting wellbeing

Click here to access the portal

Categories
Accident Prevention Community Safety Healthy Settings

Environmental health inequalities in Europe: Second assessment report

By WHO (2019)

Environmental conditions are a major determinant of health and well-being, but they are not shared equally across the population. Higher levels of environmental risk are often found in disadvantaged population subgroups. This assessment report considers the distribution of environmental risks and
injuries within countries and shows that unequal environmental conditions, risk exposures and related health outcomes affect citizens daily in all settings where people live, work and spend their time.
The report documents the magnitude of environmental health inequalities within countries through 19 inequality indicators on urban, housing and working conditions, basic services and injuries. Inequalities in risks and outcomes occur in all countries in the WHO European Region, and the latest
evidence confirms that socially disadvantaged population subgroups are those most affected by environmental hazards, causing avoidable health effects and contributing to health inequalities.
The results call for more environmental and intersectoral action to identify and protect those who already carry a disproportionate environmental burden. Addressing inequalities in environmental risk will help to mitigate health inequalities and contribute to fairer and more socially cohesive societies.

Click here to view this report

Categories
Healthy Settings Licensing Long-Term Conditions Mortality Planning

Improving the public's health: local government delivers

By Local Government Association (2019)

This report states that since taking over responsibility for public health in 2013, councils have maintained or improved 80 per cent of public health outcomes in England. At the same time, councils nationally have had their funding cut by 49 per cent in real terms, between 2010/11 and 2017/18. It calls for the government to reverse these budget declines in the forthcoming Spending Review to ensure that public health services continue to flourish and alleviate cost pressures on the NHS.

Click here to view this report

Categories
Cancer Healthy Settings Nutrition Obesity

Paying the price: New evidence on the link between price promotions, purchasing of less healthy food and drink, and overweight and obesity in Great Britain

By Cancer Research UK (2019)

The study, which looked at the habits of more than 16,000 British households, found that people whose shopping baskets contained around 40-80 per cent of goods on special offer have more than a 50 per cent increased chance of being obese.

Click here to view this report

Categories
Ageing Well Care of the Elderly Healthy Settings Long-Term Conditions Mortality

Raising the bar on strength and balance: The importance of community-based provision

By Centre for Ageing Better (2019)

Despite common misconceptions, falls are not an inevitable part of ageing and can be prevented. Although there are some NHS rehabilitation services that provide strength and balance programmes, these are often of limited length, making it essential that there are effective community-based strength and balance programmes in their local areas to move on to. This report, co-authored with the University of Manchester’s Healthy Ageing Research Group, shows a need for sustained, targeted funding for community-based programmes, with affordable, accessible and proven options available for everyone.

Click here to view this document

Categories
Cancer Healthy Settings Screening

Investigation into the management of health screening

By National Audit Office (2019)

This report finds that the proportion of eligible adults receiving health screening is inconsistent across different areas in England and that services are not operating to the ‘agreed standards’. The investigation focused on: delivery of health screening programmes; performance of health screening programmes; oversight of health screening programmes; and progress in implementing change in screening programmes.

Click here to access this report

Categories
Healthy Settings Working-age population

Health matters: health and work

By Public Health England (2019)

This guidance provides actions that employers in general, local authorities and the NHS workforce can take to remove health-related barriers to gaining and retaining employment.

Click here to view this guidance

Categories
Accident Prevention Alcohol Cancer Care of the Elderly Community Safety CVD CYP Healthcare Health Protection (Emergency planning Healthy Child including NCMP & CDO Healthy Settings Infant Feeding Infant Mortality Infection Control Library Liver Disease including NHS Health Checks Long-Term Conditions Mortality Respiratory Disease seasonal mortality) Tobacco & Drugs

NHS long term plan case studies

The NHS Long Term Plan will make sure the NHS is fit for the future.
Find out through our case studies and films about how the NHS is already making significant changes and developing to better meet the needs of patients and their families through every stage of life.

View case studies by topic:
Cancer
Cardiovascular
Diabetes
Digital
Integrated care
Learning disabilities
Maternity
Mental health
Personalised care
Primary care
Stroke
Urgent and emergency care

View case studies by life stage:
Starting well
Better care for major health conditions
Ageing well

Categories
Accident Prevention Care of the Elderly Community Safety CVD Health Protection (Emergency planning Healthy Settings Liver Disease including NHS Health Checks Respiratory Disease seasonal mortality)

The impact of social assistance programs on population health: a systematic review of research in high-income countries

Shahidi, F.V. et al BMC Public Health, 2019; 19 (2)

Click here to read the full text article

Background

Socioeconomic disadvantage is a fundamental cause of morbidity and mortality. One of the most important ways that governments buffer the adverse consequences of socioeconomic disadvantage is through the provision of social assistance. We conducted a systematic review of research examining the health impact of social assistance programs in high-income countries.

Methods

We systematically searched Embase, Medline, ProQuest, Scopus, and Web of Science from inception to December 2017 for peer-reviewed studies published in English-language journals. We identified empirical patterns through a qualitative synthesis of the evidence. We also evaluated the empirical rigour of the selected literature.

Results

Seventeen studies met our inclusion criteria. Thirteen descriptive studies rated as weak (n = 7), moderate (n = 4), and strong (n = 2) found that social assistance is associated with adverse health outcomes and that social assistance recipients exhibit worse health outcomes relative to non-recipients. Four experimental and quasi-experimental studies, all rated as strong (n = 4), found that efforts to limit the receipt of social assistance or reduce its generosity (also known as welfare reform) were associated with adverse health trends.

Conclusions

Evidence from the existing literature suggests that social assistance programs in high-income countries are failing to maintain the health of socioeconomically disadvantaged populations. These findings may in part reflect the influence of residual confounding due to unobserved characteristics that distinguish recipients from non-recipients. They may also indicate that the scope and generosity of existing programs are insufficient to offset the negative health consequences of severe socioeconomic disadvantage.

Categories
Accident Prevention Alcohol Cancer Care of the Elderly Community Safety CVD CYP Healthcare Evidence Based Health Protection (Emergency planning Healthy Child including NCMP & CDO Healthy Settings Infant Feeding Infant Mortality Infection Control Library Liver Disease including NHS Health Checks Long-Term Conditions Respiratory Disease seasonal mortality) Tobacco & Drugs

Prescribing cannabis based drugs: response from NICE and Health Education England

I thought I would include this response from NICE and HEE as it is an important message. Click the link below to access the letter or read it below.

https://www.bmj.com/content/363/bmj.k4940

Further to Hamilton’s recommendation that general practitioners consult Google Scholar and ask their colleagues if they are unsure about prescribing cannabis,1 we write to remind readers in England that they have 24/7 access to reliable sources of evidence to inform clinical decisions.

The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence’s evidence search (https://www.evidence.nhs.uk) provides access to authoritative evidence on health, social care, and public health. It focuses on synthesised secondary evidence, including content from over 800 sources, including the British National Formulary, Clinical Knowledge Summaries, SIGN, the Cochrane Library, the royal colleges, Public Health England, and GOV.UK. Information and knowledge specialists at NICE add further good quality systematic reviews. This service is openly available to everyone in the UK; here you will find reviews on the use of cannabis in treatment of epilepsy, neuropathic pain, fibromyalgia, HIV/AIDS, and asthma.

Healthcare staff in England can access a vital, core collection of healthcare databases and full text journals for no charge at https://hdas.nice.org.uk. Purchased by Health Education England on behalf of the NHS in England, these are provided online in partnership with NICE. You simply need an NHS OpenAthens account. Register at https://www.nice.org.uk/about/what-we-do/evidence-services/journals-and-databases/OpenAthens.

NHS funded librarians and knowledge specialists are skilled in helping colleagues find information and search for evidence. They can offer summarised evidence searches and help teams keep up-to-date.

Health is a knowledge industry. We encourage practices to contact their local healthcare library. Check http://hlisd.org for details. Health Education England is committed to work with NHS organisations to ensure that all staff can access knowledge for healthcare23 and benefit from the expertise of healthcare librarians. We know that only a third of Clinical Commissioning Groups currently have such arrangements in place for their staff and member practices. For advice on improving your organisation’s access to knowledge services please contact your regional Health Education England library lead.3