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People-centred public health examines how members of the public can be involved in delivering health improvement, primarily as volunteers or lay health workers. With a foreword by Professor Sir Michael Marmot and Dr Mike Grady, this timely book draws on a major study of lay engagement in public health, using case studies and real life examples to provide a comprehensive and accessible overview of policy, practice and research in this area. In an economic and political climate where there is renewed interest in the role of the citizen, the authors challenge old orthodoxies in public health and build a coherent argument for radical change in the way public agencies support lay action. The book is aimed at readers with an academic or professional interest in public health and/or community involvement, including practitioners and managers within public services and the voluntary sector, and post-graduate and undergraduate students studying public health, health promotion, public sector management, social policy and community work.
Drawing on in-depth case studies across England, this book argues that governance and population health are inextricably linked. Using original research, it shows how these links can be illustrated at a local level through commissioning practice related to health and wellbeing. Exploring the impact of governance on decision- making, Governance, commissioning and public health analyses how principles, such as social justice, and governance arrangements, including standards and targets, influence local strategies and priorities for public health investment. In developing ‘public health governance’ as a critical concept, the study demonstrates the complexity of the governance landscape for public health and the leadership qualities required to negotiate it. This book is essential reading for students, academics, practitioners and policy-makers with an interest in governance and decision-making for public health.
Health systems everywhere are experiencing rapid change in response to new threats to health, including from lifestyle diseases, risks of pandemic flu, and the global effects of climate change but health inequalities continue to widen. Such developments have profound implications for the future direction of public health policy and practice.
The public health system in England offers a wide-ranging, provocative and accessible assessment of challenges confronting a public health system, exploring how its parameters have shifted and what the origins of dilemmas in public health practice are. The book will therefore appeal to public health professionals and students of health policy, potentially engaging them in political and social advocacy.
The UK government’s reforms of the NHS and public health system require partnerships if they are to succeed. Those partnerships concerned with public health are especially important and are deemed to be a ’good thing’ which add, rather than consume, value. Yet the significant emphasis on partnership working to secure effective policy and service delivery exists despite the evidence testifying to how difficult it is to make partnerships work or achieve results.
Partnership working in public health presents the findings from a detailed study of public health partnerships in England. The lessons from the research are used to explore the government’s changes in public health now being implemented, most of which centre on new partnerships called Health and Wellbeing Boards that have been established to work differently from their predecessors.The book assesses their likely impact and the implications for the future of public health partnerships. Drawing on systems thinking, it argues that partnerships can only succeed if they work in quite different ways. The book will therefore appeal to the public health community and students of health policy.
Patients Programme, community health champions and the Health Trainer Programme (described later in the chapter). In addition, there are many initiatives outside the health field that are helping to improve health and well-being. One example is Home-Start, which, through a network of nearly 16,000 trained parent volunteers, supports parents who are struggling to cope for a whole variety of reasons, for example, postnatal illness, disability, bereavement, the illness of a parent or child, or social isolation (Home-Start, no date). The Expert Patient Programme The
, access to services and future strategies, although the extent to which this occurred in the study was variable (see Chapter Seven). Despite requirements for commissioners to be both accountable and transparent, the study showed that skills in using prioritisation methods, including modelling, were in short supply within PCTs at the time of the study. 172 Governance, commissioning and public health Box 6.1: Using public health intelligence Burden of illness studies estimate leading causes of preventable illness, premature mortality and disability for defined
Sports, exercise 13 22 Health, disability 13 22 Children, young people 11 18 Local community, neighbourhood, citizens’ groups 10 17 Hobbies, recreation, social clubs 8 13 Overseas aid, disaster relief 6 11 Animal welfare 6 10 Elderly people 5 8 Arts and museums 5 8 Conservation, the environment and heritage 4 8 Social welfare 4 7 Politics 2 4 Safety, first aid 2 4 Justice, human rights 2 4 Trade unions 2 3 Other 2 3 Source: Low et al (2008, p 25). 18 People-centred public health general. From a US perspective, Alinksy and McKnight (cited in Community Sector Coalition
be prevented and where early detection can reduce disability, morbidity and premature mortality. Weaknesses in the skills and capacity of local commissioners were cited as barriers, although this criticism may derive from an underestimate of the resources, incentives and political will required to carry out successful commissioning for public health in the face of competing demands. Short-term gains often prevail over the longer-term benefits of investment in public health for pragmatic and political reasons. Moreover, the public may not be ‘fully engaged
marker’. This again fits with the concept of a spectrum of involvement. Enabling people to move from informal to formal roles and increasing the intensity of involvement may offer a key to sustainability (South et al, 2012). barriers to volunteering Volunteers often start out as service users, but there are barriers to volunteering that deter people from making a contribution (Neuberger, 2008). Some of the service users interviewed spoke of personal circumstances preventing them from taking up a volunteer role. These included physical disabilities or health
to public health” (Department of Health, 2006). He went on to suggest that: This situation has not been created by any person or group of people. It is the result of many disparate factors, but at its heart is a set of attitudes that emphasises short-term thinking, holds too dear the idea of the hospital bed and regards the prevention of premature death, disease and disability as an option not a duty. It is time for things to change. (Department of Health, 2006: 44) In Elson’s opinion, what is required is a reawakening of a sense of local government
