Poor prevention and early intervention
Over-reliance on hospital discharge solutions rather than prioritising prevention and early intervention strategies in health and social care.
Strongest theme matches
Mixed across source types and ranked by classifier confidence plus text match strength.
Committee recommendation
100match
#14 - Spending shifts from preventative to late intervention services, increasing later costs and worsening outcomes.
MHCLG recognises the importance of investing in prevention but also the challenge of funding it when finances are constrained.34 Preventative services help stop, delay or reduce the need for statutory services and can help to deliver better outcomes.35 Over the period 2015–16 to 2023–24, local authorities have spent more on some later intervention services and less on 26...
Matched on
terms: early, intervention, prevention
Committee recommendation
100match
#3 - Provide details on how local government finance settlement will support greater investment in prevention.
Significant financial pressures are constraining local authorities’ ability to invest in prevention, leading to less early intervention services which could help manage demand. Preventative services can be used to manage demand by helping to stop, delay or reduce the extent of need for statutory services and can help deliver better outcomes. Government has different approaches to encourage spending...
Matched on
terms: early, intervention, prevention
Committee recommendation
78match
#9 - MHCLG exploring incentives and best practice sharing for homelessness prevention funding.
MHCLG told us that it was actively looking at ways to incentivise and support local government to move more funding into preventive rather than reactive activity.13 We pressed MHCLG on how it might achieve this. It explained that local authorities have different strategies–for example, in terms of intervening in the housing market or working with other agencies. While...
Matched on
terms: prevention
Committee recommendation
70match
#8 - National homelessness prevention strategies remain limited, delaying support for vulnerable families.
In its written submission, the Shared Health Foundation emphasised that, aside from plans to build more houses, national prevention strategies for all forms of homelessness remain limited. It claimed that many families facing homelessness are told by local authorities to wait until their eviction date before being provided with emergency support, because of a lack of viable preventive...
Matched on
terms: prevention
Committee recommendation
70match
#25 - Home Office makes little progress on VAWG prevention, straining criminal justice system capacity.
The NAO found that, to date, the Home Office has made little progress developing measures to prevent violence against women and girls (VAWG).58 The Home Office told us that it expects that reported rates of VAWG will increase initially due to an increase in trust in the system.59 However, stakeholders told the NAO that they were concerned about...
Matched on
terms: prevention
Committee recommendation
70match
#7 - Require DSIT to outline Online Safety Act's impact on children's safety and VAWG prevention.
We are concerned that government departments’ approach to tech–enabled violence against women and girls is not sufficiently agile to address the threats posed by online harm. Tech–enabled VAWG is a rapidly evolving threat. For example, in 2024 the revenge porn helpline received 22,000 cases, compared with 521 in 2015. The Online Safety Act, introduced in October 2023, was...
Matched on
terms: prevention
Committee recommendation
69match
#22 - 3rd Report – Food and Weight Management: Fixing the food environment
Advertising methods are changing quickly, with the rising prominence of social media advertising, digital advertising, sport sponsorship, online gaming and direct marketing through app notification. Existing regulations do not adequately address these forms of advertising. Further delay to strengthening restrictions must be avoided. Given it took nearly five years from announcing to implementing the policy to ban HFSS,...
Matched on
terms: early
Committee recommendation
69match
#12 - 3rd Report – Food and Weight Management: Fixing the food environment
Local projects to support access to healthier foods are doing fantastic work in their communities and seeing real results, using local knowledge and building strong community relationships to drive change. Community projects need to be a core part of any work to address the challenges in the food system and the government needs to better recognise their value...
Matched on
terms: intervention
NAO recommendation
68match
NHS Financial Management and Sustainability
DHSC, NHSE and ICSs need to intensify their efforts to manage current and future demand for healthcare by preventing more serious ill health. This should include: ? work to improve understanding of what ICBs and providers have had success doing so far, and how much is spent on prevention outside national programmes; ? an agreed definition of what...
Matched on
terms: poor, prevention
PFD report
65match
Isabella Drew
Inadequate national guidance and audit procedures prevent healthcare providers from consistently advising pregnant women about whooping cough vaccination. Poor communication links between antenatal healthcare providers also pose risks.
Matched on
terms: poor
PFD report
65match
Steven Regoli
Inadequate systems existed for providing in-depth mental health support to patients with anxiety and non-engagement issues, leaving families as the sole caregivers and preventing necessary intervention.
Matched on
terms: intervention
Committee recommendation
65match
#40 - 3rd Report – Access to Justice: Legal Aid
The restrictive scope of the legal help scheme undermines early intervention, causing legal issues to escalate and contributing to increased harm and use of resources. (Conclusion, Paragraph 119)
Matched on
terms: early, intervention
PFD report
61match
Emma Carpenter
Critical specialist eating disorder services for children lacked long-term funding and inpatient bed provision. Insufficient funding for school nurses caused poor communication between mental health and education systems.
Matched on
terms: poor
PFD report
61match
Jack May
Inadequate university mental health services, characterized by long waits and limited appointments, combined with patchy, poorly trained pastoral support from personal tutors, allowed students to "slip through the net."
Matched on
terms: poor
Committee recommendation
61match
#19 - 1st Report - Black people’s experiences of homelessness
We welcome the focus on young people in the National Plan to End Homelessness, not least given the elevated risks young people can face through abuse, family breakdown and care leaving. Ensuring young people can get the right support at an early stage to prevent them experiencing homelessness will be vital to the success of the government’s homelessness...
Matched on
terms: early
Committee recommendation
61match
#20 - 1st Report – Employment support for disabled people: Connect to Work
In its response to this report, the government should set out clearly how individuals affected by gaps between the Work and Health Programme Pioneer and the rollout of Connect to Work will be supported going forward. This should include an explanation of how demand pressures on Connect to Work will be anticipated and managed as implementation continues, particularly...
Matched on
terms: early
Committee recommendation
61match
#27 - Departmental annual report shows significant omissions on preventative and end-of-life care.
The NHS Long Term Plan states that ill health prevention helps the public to stay healthy, as well as moderating demands on the NHS. The Department recognised in its 2023–24 Annual Report that there “is still much work to do to make a shift towards prevention in the NHS”.43 We observed that, with the exception of a very...
Matched on
terms: prevention
HSSIB recommendation
61match
Investigation report: Mental health inpatient settings - out of area placements
Healthcare services can improve patient safety by conducting assessments for neurodevelopmental conditions such as autism and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, where it is safe and clinically indicated, at the earliest opportunity when a person is in contact with community and acute mental health services. This can ensure that patients are put on the appropriate pathway early. This can...
Matched on
terms: early
Committee recommendation
59match
#27 - 3rd Report – Food and Weight Management: Fixing the food environment
The Food (Promotion and Placement) (England) Regulations 2021 should be updated no later than January 2027 to: a. include a requirement to place fruits and vegetables in prominent instore locations like checkouts and store entrances; and b. extend the definition of a prominent location on a website to include ‘special offers’ pages. (Recommendation, Paragraph 123) Prioritising health in...
Matched on
classifier match
PFD report
57match
Edward Farmer
A national campaign is needed to highlight the inherent risks of rapid alcohol consumption and initiation events, focusing on identifying at-risk individuals and the importance of timely medical intervention.
Matched on
terms: intervention
PFD report
57match
Carolyne Senior
Hospital staff lacked sufficient specialist mental health advice to properly assess and mitigate falls risks for patients with mental health needs, leading to inadequate care plans.
Matched on
classifier match
Committee recommendation
57match
#41 - 3rd Report – Access to Justice: Legal Aid
Accepting there is a lack of government appetite to reintroduce broad categories of law back into the legal aid scheme, the Ministry of Justice should reduce barriers to providers giving holistic early legal advice. For example, it should allow providers to give early advice on a wider range of legal issues under controlled work contracts. (Recommendation, Paragraph 120)...
Matched on
terms: early
Committee recommendation
57match
#17 - 2nd Report - Reading for Pleasure
The Department and Ofsted should update the early years foundation stage profile and early years inspection framework to emphasise that, for young children, reading should be focused on building enjoyment and engagement over school readiness and the teaching of phonics. (Recommendation, Paragraph 57)
Matched on
terms: early
Committee recommendation
57match
#33 - 3rd Report – Food and Weight Management: Fixing the food environment
A more strategic and holistic view of food policy that seeks to improve the healthiness of food and the food environment is needed. The government should either extend the scope of existing regulation or create new regulation to ensure that the prominence and promotion of HFSS foods is reduced across all food retailers and not only supermarkets. It...
Matched on
classifier match
Committee recommendation
57match
#32 - 3rd Report – Food and Weight Management: Fixing the food environment
The current regulatory framework does not create a level playing field across all settings where food is purchased, largely ignores the out-of-home sector, has a blind spot around delivery apps and is littered with loopholes that ultimately undermine the intended health improvement outcomes from these policies. We are concerned by insufficient thinking about the role that the out-of-home...
Matched on
classifier match
Committee recommendation
57match
#30 - 3rd Report – Food and Weight Management: Fixing the food environment
The government needs to build and fund a more robust enforcement regime for existing and upcoming regulation, which should include: a. improved, ring-fenced funding and an improved training offer for local authority trading standards and environmental health teams to improve their capacity to address all enforcement issues; and b. stronger penalties that act as a real deterrent for...
Matched on
classifier match
Committee recommendation
57match
#29 - 3rd Report – Food and Weight Management: Fixing the food environment
We are concerned by the lack of enforcement of policies and recommend the government review the extent to which its policies are being enforced and, in its response to us, set out detail on resources available for enforcement. (Recommendation, Paragraph 134)
Matched on
classifier match
Committee recommendation
57match
#26 - 3rd Report – Food and Weight Management: Fixing the food environment
It is concerning that HFSS foods continue to feature prominently on pages on retailer websites that are not covered by existing regulations, particularly special offers pages. We know that price is a driver of shopping habits and so believe that special offers pages should be included as an example of a ‘prominent’ location online. (Conclusion, Paragraph 122)
Matched on
classifier match
Committee recommendation
57match
#25 - 3rd Report – Food and Weight Management: Fixing the food environment
Existing regulation could be better used to play a more active role in building healthier retail environments. While we are encouraged that changing shop layouts is one of the government’s suggested ways of achieving healthier sales, given there will likely be some time before the healthy sales targets are set, action should be taken now. (Conclusion, Paragraph 121)
Matched on
classifier match
Committee recommendation
57match
#21 - 3rd Report – Food and Weight Management: Fixing the food environment
The evidence is clear: advertising impacts on the consumption of HFSS foods. The government has already accepted this to some degree given the action already taken to restrict exposure to HFSS advertising, but it must be bolder. Its current approach leaves the majority of advertising untouched and undermines the intention of restricting exposure. No effort has also been...
Matched on
classifier match
Committee recommendation
57match
#18 - 3rd Report – Food and Weight Management: Fixing the food environment
To drive further reformulation, we recommend that the government: a. continues to explore how the SDIL can be expanded and sets out a timetable for reducing the threshold to its originally intended 4g per 100ml; b. develops an equivalent of the Scottish Reformulation for Health Programme to roll out to small and medium sized food and drink manufacturers...
Matched on
classifier match
Committee recommendation
57match
#17 - 3rd Report – Food and Weight Management: Fixing the food environment
We acknowledge the efforts that manufacturers have gone to in reformulating products to remove sugar, salt and fat and increase fibre, and the challenges that can come from this for smaller businesses. Taxation has been shown to drive producer behaviour through the soft drinks industry levy (SDIL), and we believe this should continue as a mechanism for driving...
Matched on
classifier match
Committee recommendation
57match
#16 - 3rd Report – Food and Weight Management: Fixing the food environment
In addition, the government should take steps to explore how to ensure the effectiveness of front-of-pack labelling in the long term, including: a. how to make front-of pack information clear for consumers and ensure it avoids contradictory health and nutrition messaging; b. learning from labelling used in other countries, such as the French Nutri-Score or the Chilean ‘warning...
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classifier match
Committee recommendation
57match
#15 - 3rd Report – Food and Weight Management: Fixing the food environment
The government should introduce mandatory front-of-pack labelling by January 2028. While we acknowledge that the traffic light approach is not perfect, we nevertheless recommend using the pre-existing label as its template as this is familiar to consumers and widely used by manufacturers in the market, so should cause the least disruption to businesses and support swift implementation. (Recommendation,...
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classifier match
Committee recommendation
57match
#13 - 3rd Report – Food and Weight Management: Fixing the food environment
We therefore repeat the recommendation previously made by Sir Henry Dimbleby that the government should establish a “Community Eatwell” programme to provide healthy eating support to families and individuals on low incomes experiencing food-related ill health. The government should also work with industry to secure match-funding for this programme. (Recommendation, Paragraph 60)
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classifier match
Committee recommendation
57match
#8 - 3rd Report – Food and Weight Management: Fixing the food environment
As part of plans for large businesses to report on healthy sales and progress towards healthy sales targets, the government should require those businesses to report on the price promotions it offers, specifically the percentage of such promotions on healthier foods like fruits and vegetables. (Recommendation, Paragraph 37)
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classifier match
Committee recommendation
57match
#4 - 3rd Report – Food and Weight Management: Fixing the food environment
Healthy sales reporting and targets are the government’s flagship policy for addressing the food environment in the 10 Year Health Plan, with much resting on their implementation and success. It has been over a year since the 10 Year Health Plan was published and no visible progress has been made towards designing, let alone implementing, this policy. (Conclusion,...
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classifier match
Committee recommendation
57match
#3 - 3rd Report – Food and Weight Management: Fixing the food environment
The government should also commit to regularly reviewing and updating the nutrient profile model so that we do not go another 22 years, or more, between updates. Reviewing and implementing an updated nutrient profiling model on a 10-year cycle would strike a sensible balance between reflecting evolving scientific advice and providing certainty to industry. (Recommendation, Paragraph 15)
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classifier match
Committee recommendation
57match
#30 - VAWG Strategy lacks specific provisions to address harmful attitudes among boys beyond RSE.
We asked DfE specifically what role boys are playing in the prevention work it was delivering through the VAWG Strategy. DfE told us that there is not a part of the new VAWG Strategy specifically designed to address harmful attitudes amongst boys.71 DfE told us that it had expanded the new draft guidance on RSE to include misogynistic...
Matched on
terms: prevention
HSSIB recommendation
57match
Management of chronic asthma in children aged 16 years and under
It may be beneficial for a health intervention to be delivered to enhance the general public’s knowledge and understanding of asthma, emphasising the potential seriousness of the condition. This could be linked to the modernisation of the Healthy Child Programme, which is being led by Public Health England.
Matched on
terms: intervention
HMICFRS recommendation
56match
FRS 2021-22 CoC Recommendations: Buckinghamshire Fire and Rescue Service
Cause of concern: Prevention activity is not a sufficiently high priority for the service, and it is not adequately identifying those most at risk from fire. Recommendation: By 30 September 2021, the service should have plans in place for:- the revision of its prevention strategy in order that it clearly prioritises the people most at risk of fire...
Matched on
terms: early, prevention
PFD report
53match
Ann Margaret Spearing
Despite clear malnutrition and learning difficulties, the deceased was repeatedly assessed by mental health, hospital, and eating disorder services, yet consistently misdiagnosed or found not to have a treatable condition.
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classifier match
PFD report
53match
Vadims Aleksejevs
There is a lack of clarity on whether adult social care or addiction services provide outreach to vulnerable homeless individuals on campsites, and an unclear statutory duty to house them.
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classifier match
PFD report
53match
Jamie Pashley
The system over-relied on individuals proactively managing their rehabilitation post-detoxification. Concerns included a lack of fixed appointments, follow-up calls, and limited availability of an alcohol liaison nurse post-discharge.
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classifier match
PFD report
53match
Rifky Grossberger
Insufficient communication of blind cord dangers to new parents, absence of a national safety leaflet, and missed opportunities for healthcare professionals to provide warnings contributed to the risk.
Matched on
classifier match
Committee recommendation
53match
#15 - 2nd Report - Reading for Pleasure
The early years is a crucial stage for developing a love of reading and engagement with books and stories. We agree with the Department that developing literacy and reading skills is essential, but at this early stage, joy must lead the way. Fun and enjoyment must come first in the early years, as this provides the foundation and...
Matched on
terms: early
Committee recommendation
53match
#36 - 3rd Report – Food and Weight Management: Fixing the food environment
While we acknowledge the costs of policy changes to the food industry, these are marginal when compared to the huge costs of inaction on obesity to society, the economy and the health service. In the event that policy relating to the healthiness of food is delayed or substantially changed, Parliament must be given a timely update as to...
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classifier match
Committee recommendation
53match
#28 - 3rd Report – Food and Weight Management: Fixing the food environment
Policies to support a reduction in the consumption of HFSS foods stand no chance of success if they are not strongly enforced. Businesses need to be clear that there will be consequence for failing to meet their legal requirements to create healthier environments in their stores. (Conclusion, Paragraph 133) 57
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classifier match
Committee recommendation
53match
#24 - 3rd Report – Food and Weight Management: Fixing the food environment
A holistic, consistent and watertight approach to restricting the exposure of children to all HFSS advertising needs to be developed. It should include: 56 a. bringing brand and range advertising into the scope of existing regulations as soon as possible and certainly not waiting for the five- year implementation period to gather evidence on this: evidence is already...
Matched on
classifier match
Committee recommendation
53match
#23 - 3rd Report – Food and Weight Management: Fixing the food environment
On a local level, some local authorities are working hard to improve their own food environment through bans to outdoor advertising, but they are severely limited due to only being able to target council-owned assets. To ensure a consistent approach, to address the fact that areas of higher deprivation have a higher prevalence of outdoor advertising and to...
Matched on
classifier match