§ 5. Helen Jones (Warrington, North)If he will make a statement on the work of the north-west public health observatory. [75353]
§ The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health (Ms Hazel Blears)The north-west public health observatory is taking a lead role in the north-west region and nationally on important policy areas of communicable disease, health protection and drug misuse to provide intelligence to protect the public's health. Its success is reflected in a move from annual funding to a three-year funding programme.
§ Helen JonesI thank my hon. Friend for that reply. What she says about funding is good news, but what steps will she take to ensure that the work of the public health observatory is properly disseminated and that it informs the decisions of primary care and acute trusts, so that decisions on the provision and accessibility of health services are directed at those areas most in need?
§ Ms BlearsMy hon. Friend makes an important point. The north-west public health observatory has a link to the Department on communicable disease and drug misuse, so its information and evidence are fed through the system. There was an excellent example of that recently when the observatory was able to trace the people involved in a significant outbreak of syphilis in the Manchester area, and to carry out tests. As a result of the intelligence that it gained on the ground from that important project, it was able to inform our policies centrally on prevention and tracing.
§ Mr. Oliver Heald (North-East Hertfordshire)Is not the Minister aware that the Government have been heavily criticised by their own adviser, Steve Jamieson, who has said that the Prime Minister and the Government delayed introducing the sexual health strategy because they were embarrassed about the high level of sexually transmitted disease? He said:
while they were sitting on the strategy there were people out there who could not access services and were contracting sexually transmitted infections.While the Government were dithering over this issue for three years, how many people did the observatory monitor who needlessly fell ill or were denied treatment? Does the Minister agree that the dismantling of the Public Health Laboratory Service on top of all this will make matters worse?
§ Ms BlearsThe hon. Gentleman knows that the Government have introduced the first ever sexual health strategy, so we are taking the issue seriously. It is backed by additional funding of £47 million, and an extra £5 million this year for genito-urinary services. I have visited GU services in the past few weeks, and I know the pressure that they are under. They are having to treat many more people, which is why the Government have put their money where their mouth is and have established a strategy, with money to back up the action plan.