Government publishes its Health Challenge for England

Public Health Minister Caroline Flint has today outlined the Government's radical new approach to improving health and tackling health inequalities as she unveiled the most comprehensive picture ever of the state of the nation's health.

The Health Profile of England shows the full scale of public health improvements over recent years and highlights the problems we continue to face. Health Challenge England - next steps for Choosing Health sets out public health achievements since 2004 and the next stage of that programme of action.

The key findings of the Health Profile are:

life expectancy is increasing across the board;
the quality of housing stock is better;
more children have been lifted out of poverty;
mortality rates under 75 years from cancer and circulatory diseases have fallen year on year since the mid 1990s; and
the gap between the most disadvantaged areas and the national average has narrowed.

However, the profile also shows that there remains a consistent north/south divide with people in the north of England experiencing poorer health than those in the South and life expectancy is one year shorter for women and two years shorter for men in the North compared to the South.

Fast gains in life expectancy can be made by reducing the prevalence of smoking, effective control of blood pressure and cholesterol, and good care of people with long-term conditions such as diabetes.

Traditional campaigns such as the Government's stop smoking campaign have had an impact. There are now 1.2 million fewer people smoking than in 1998. But the Government now recognises that the one size fits all, single issue approach to campaigning needs to change to a more targeted approach which will drill down into the detail of how people live their lives as a whole and what levers will motivate people to change their behaviour. This approach is starting to bite; for example, last year's stop smoking campaign focused on looks and sex appeal because for younger people, fears about attractiveness and fertility can be a stronger motivation to quit than fears about health.

On a more local level:

Manchester is on track to improve life expectancy for men. Last year, they helped 700 more smokers to quit than they needed to hit the national target.

Newcastle is the top improver for women in reducing the life expectancy gap, with seven health trainers seeing over a hundred people a month getting them swimming, walking and finding them a buddy to go to the gym.

And, in Hammersmith and Fulham, in London, they are right on track for improving health inequality for both men and women. They are screening for high blood pressure, cholesterol and diabetes in two years they have seen over 700 people. They are referring on to exercise schemes, stop smoking services and a chef club and are reducing cholesterol levels and bringing people's blood pressure back down to normal.

The Prime Minister and Public Health Minister Caroline Flint visited East London today [10 October 2006] to take part in a workshop involving community leaders, businesses and voluntary organisations from Tower Hamlets to discuss new ways to encourage people to adopt healthy lifestyles and Government, industry and health professionals can support them.

Caroline Flint said: 'The Health Profile of England clearly sets out the health of the nation in 2004. What we need to do now is focus on those areas of the country that still face the biggest health challenges. Obesity and diabetes are on the increase as is the proportion of people who consider themselves to be in poor health.

'Since we published our Choosing Health White Paper in 2004 we have begun to build up a clear idea of what works to improve the health in those areas of the country that face the most serious problems.

'We are learning the lessons of what has and has not worked in influencing the choices people make about their health. Working closely with a range of stakeholders from the health, commercial and voluntary sectors we have found out more about why people don't make healthy choices. Only by knowing this can we be more effective in tackling obesity and targeting the right services to the right people.

'Health Challenge England will push this new approach forward. It will put people in the driving seat to make the changes they need to lead healthier lives.

'Our initial focus will be obese adults and children. The rapid increase in child and adult obesity over the past decade is storing up very serious health problems for the future. Effective action on diet and exercise will help to tackle future heart disease, cancer, diabetes, stroke, high blood pressure, high cholesterol and a range of factors critical to health like mental well being.

'We have learnt that often parents who are overweight or obese find it difficult to assess their children's weight status and appreciate the associated health risks for their children and themselves. Parents are not always embracing healthy eating and active lifestyles as it is perceived to be too challenging. We want to support parents to make them feel more able to make the changes that are needed to make a big difference to their own - and their children's lives.

'This new approach will invigorate and consolidate the work we have been doing successfully across government, with industry, voluntary sector and private sectors. Supermarkets, schools, bus companies, pubs all influence the choices people make.'

The new Obesity Social Marketing Strategy will be launched next year.

Source: Department of Health

To access Health Challenge England and read about the background to the Choosing Health white paper, click here

To access the Health Profile of England click here

To access Community Health Profiles for each primary care trust/local authority area, click here