Select committee: Health and Social Care Committee
Conclusion 13
First Report - Prevention in health and social care: healthy places
Published 19 Jan 2024
Paragraph 55
Addressed to Department of Health and Social Care
Health and Social Care Committee Prevention in health and social care All items in this report Report on parliament.uk ↗ Inquiry on parliament.uk ↗
Conclusion (the committee's words)
Integrated Care Systems aim to enable a stronger focus on prevention, and on the specific approaches needed in different communities to help ensure that they are “healthy places”. But this is a long-term agenda. The mixed longer-term outcomes of initiatives such as Healthy New Towns demonstrate that building communities that protect good health is not something that can be accomplished through isolated programmes over a few years. The immediate pressures on health services are numerous and compelling, and there is already evidence that these are crowding out longer-term strategies including prevention. Because the numerous costs of “unhealthy places” fall so heavily on the health service, it is essential that the right systems, people and funding are in place for the long term to maintain a focus on prevention and protecting population health.
From: Health and Social Care Committee, First Report - Prevention in health and social care: healthy places (HC 484), paragraph 55, 19 January 2024
Government response
The government responded to the whole report on 9 May 2024 (deadline 19 March 2024).
Summary written by Accountability Index from the government's response. It is not the government's own words.The government says it accepts some of the Committee's recommendations on healthy places but declines others, and states that it has carefully considered all of them.
- On the Decent Homes Standard, it accepts the recommendation, saying the Renters (Reform) Bill will bring the private rented sector under a standard for the first time and that it "intend[s] to publish our consultation on an updated DHS soon".
- On Awaab's Law, it accepts the recommendation. It will publish a consultation response and bring forward secondary legislation for social housing "as soon as practicable", but says the private rented sector needs "a different approach".
- It declines to consult on design and space standards, stating: "we do not believe it is necessary to consult on our design or space standards at this time."
- It declines to make OHID a statutory consultee, saying new statutory consultees would need to be "clearly justified", and that it is "not currently looking to extend the list of statutory consultees".