§ Miss McIntoshTo ask the Secretary of State for Health (1) what progress has been made by his Department in monitoring the health impact of the health policies of other Government Departments; [153480]
(2) what progress has been made in including health audit statements in documents outlining Government policy. [153481]
§ Yvette CooperAs stated in the NHS plan, improving health is a key priority for all Government Departments. Therefore, we are committed to promoting health impact assessment at national, regional and local levels to inform development of policy, strategy, programmes and projects. Methodologies and approaches are being developed, and there is work across Government in a number of areas to support this. A screening checklist has also been developed and has been piloted by the Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions.
An inter-departmental group is spearheading these activities, which include a number of specific impact assessments. We are examining ways to extend this type of work to cover other areas of Government policy.