Local public health services are set to get a £200 million boost for 2025/26 as part of the Government's goal to build an NHS fit for the future.
The Department of Health and Social Care has announced the funding uplift to drive key health services, ‘from smoking cessation to addiction recovery and children’s health’.
Minister for Public Health and Prevention, Andrew Gwynne, said: ‘Prevention is better than cure. If we can reach people earlier and help them stay healthy, this extra investment will pay for itself several times over in reduced demand on the NHS and by keeping people in work.
‘After a decade of cuts to public health, this government is committed to shifting the focus of healthcare from sickness to prevention, and we’re putting our money where our mouth is.’
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Funding for public health grants will be increased to £3.858 billion, a 5.4% cash uplift on last year’s funding. This is a significant turning point for public health services, as the boost is the biggest increase after nearly a decade of reduced spending between 2016 and 2024.
The investment is a part of the Government's Plan for Change, to shift the focus from hospital to community and from sickness to prevention. The money to improve public health will help to set up essential services such as addiction recovery programmes, family and school nurses, sexual health clinics, local health protection services and public health support for local NHS services.
Thea Stein, Nuffield Trust chief executive, welcomed the uplift to the public health grant, which reflected the Government’s commitment to shift healthcare more into the community and focus on prevention.
‘Public health support – from health visitors to sexual health and drug and alcohol services – can make a real difference to people’s lives. But it has long been the poor relation to the NHS, suffering the largest fall in funding compared to other NHS services according to recent analysis. Ultimately, how far today’s boost will really go depends on what happens to staff wages, which can quickly eat up funding in these services, and whether traditionally separate funding for drug and alcohol services sits within this extra money.’
Patricia Marquis, Royal College of Nursing executive director for England, said that the funding boost is a ‘step in the right direction,’ but cautioned that ‘short-term funding will not cover for years of cuts, nor help rescue the public health nursing workforce, which has been decimated over the last decade’.
She said that the crisis facing healthcare and patients is largely because of a ‘failure to invest in public health nursing and prevention. Nursing is at the heart of improving public health and preventing illness. We must see targeted investment to grow and strengthen nursing roles, including health visitors and school nurses. These are key to keeping people healthy in their communities, shifting from a reliance on treatment to prevention, and easing pressure on our NHS.’