Plymouth let down on Public Health funding allocation

Plymouth councillors have reacted angrily to news that the city’s funding for public health has been frozen by the Government despite years of underfunding.

Plymouth currently receives significantly less funding per resident than most of other cities of a similar size with similar Public Health Outcomes Framework indicators, being allocated only £47 per head public health funding compared to Portsmouth’s £77, Brighton and Hove’s £67, Bristol’s £66 and Southampton’s £62.

The Government has continued to underfund public health in Plymouth despite evidence from the Director of Public Health showing the scale of the health challenge that face many Plymouth residents, with the city having significantly worse health than the national average.

The Government has now announced that funding for 2015/16 will be frozen, which will effectively mean a real terms cut of £250,000 a year due to inflation.

The freeze comes despite intense lobbying over the last year by the Council and partners for a fairer share of funding for Plymouth.

Councillor Tudor Evans, Leader of Plymouth City Council, said: “This announcement is a total disgrace. Once again the Government has let the people of Plymouth down. In real terms this amounts to a reduction in funding of around £250,000 a year, which completely undermines our hard work to address the health problems we have in Plymouth.

“While funding for other areas is also being frozen past underfunding means we are disproportionately affected by this.

“We have lobbied hard to try and get the under-funding of Public Health in Plymouth addressed and all we have got is sympathetic noises. This is about choices. The Government has recently provided £2m to repair a pier in Eastbourne, despite it being insured and apparently feels this is more important that the health of Plymouth residents. A £2m uplift in funding for public health in Plymouth would have at least started to begin to address the longstanding problem of underfunding the city.

“We will not be taking this lying down and we will continue to fight hard in Westminster for fairer funding for Plymouth.”

Councillor Sue McDonald, Cabinet Member for Children, Young People and Public Health, said: “This money would have been vital to help us extend our initiatives to improve public health in Plymouth.

“The decision to reduce funding is a total negation of the principles of early intervention and prevention which we are told are supposedly the cornerstone of the Government’s health and wellbeing policy.”