Public health cuts will lead to more sick people, report warns
This article suggests some real challenges in the future for those seeking to underpin the public health of rural communities. It explains
More people will become ill as a direct result of the government cutting spending on public health, which will put the NHS under further strain, a parliamentary report on Wednesday warns.
Peers on a House of Lords select committee urged citizens to do more to demonstrate personal responsibility – their “common duty” – to live healthily in order to help preserve the NHS as a tax-funded system that is free at the point of use.
They blame “the short-sightedness of successive governments” for leaving the NHS underfunded, understaffed and woefully unprepared for the huge pressures now bearing down on it.
In a strongly worded report, the House of Lords select committee on the long-term sustainability of the NHS claims that cuts of £531m to public health budgets in England during this parliament could backfire badly. “Continued cuts to the public health budget are not only shortsighted but counterproductive. There is a grave risk that the burden of disease will increase if these cuts continue, a trend which is bound to result in a greater strain on all services,” it says.