Commenting on the publication of the 10 Year Health Plan for England, Matthew Bazeley-Bell, Deputy Chief Executive, Royal Society for Public Health, said:

Today’s publication of the 10 Year Health Plan for England couldn’t come at a more critical moment for the health of the nation. We do welcome the framing: that health is shaped by the places we live in. Prioritising services that keep us in good health including the role of vaccination and screening services is positive.

However, this was the moment for Government to back up the ambition for prevention. Instead, it fails to live up to the promises which have been made over the last year, and the challenge set by Lord Darzi last Summer.

The plan announced today focusses on the consequences, rather than causes, of ill health and needs to go much further than its conclusion which limits the ambition for the shift to prevention to having only ‘restarted progress’.

If the Government is serious, we need to see real commitment and transformation.  The changes require increased spending on upstream preventative services, communities working together to address the causes of ill health as well as the symptoms.  At the same time, any plan for the NHS workforce must go beyond organisational siloes and include the entire public health workforce to ensure preventative services remain viable in future.

The development of Neighbourhood Health Services could be game-changing but need to empower and resource the workforce and voluntary sector that deliver in and for communities. We can and we will play our part in making the vision happen.

Acute demand on the health service, increasing levels of ill health in the workforce, a growing mental health crisis, widening health inequalities, and a social care system that is buckling under immense pressure all need to be addressed urgently. This Government has everything to gain and nothing to lose when it comes to working with the public health system to turn things around.