No more money for public health in budget announcement

HIV organisations Terrence Higgins Trust and NAT (National AIDS Trust) are angry that no money was allocated in todays budget for Public Health which includes prevention and sexual health services, which both organisations consider to be in crisis.

DESPITE extra spending being announced for health and social care in todays budget, no extra money was announced for the public health budget which has been cut by around £700 million for the spending period 2015/16 to 2019/20.

Deborah Gold, CEO of NAT (National AIDS Trust) said: “We welcome much-needed extra funding for health and social care, but it must be distributed across the health and social care system to truly be effective at even sustaining our NHS as we know it, let alone improving it.

“Public health is a vital component of the system that has been annihilated – this includes services that many people think fall within NHS funding and that are essentially NHS services. Sexual health and drugs prevention and treatment services have been reported as being at crisis point this year – recent evidence shows a consensus amongst sexual health doctors that their services are at breaking point due to cuts to the public health grant.

“Public health services have a crucial role in supporting a healthier nation that ultimately costs the NHS less in the long-term. These cuts are a total false economy.”

Debbie Laycock, Head of Policy, Terrence Higgins Trust added: “Today, the Government has absolutely failed to take steps to address the public health and sexual health crisis England is currently experiencing.

“Investing in prevention is common sense. Despite this, today’s budget provides zero relief to frontline sexual health workers, nor people who are currently unable to access these services.

 “Public health, including sexual health services, lead to better health outcomes for individuals, prevent ill-health and help relieve pressure on already overstretched NHS and social care sector.

 “Yet, sexual health services are unsustainable without increased public health funding and, by 2020, local authority public health budgets will have seen real-term cuts to the value of £700million.

“If this wasn’t bad enough, today’s budget not only leaves us even more disappointed with the Government’s lack of action, but also increasingly worried about the impact that this will continue to have on so many people across the country.”