Less than a month before the new financial year, local authorities still don't know how much public health funding they will receive.
Alice Wiseman, Gateshead Council's director of public health, said this meant the authority was having to "take risks" in terms of commissioning services and "hoping" that the promised Government funding materialises. Ms Wiseman was speaking while giving evidence to the Public Accounts Committee in in Whitehall on Thursday.
In response, Jonathan Marron - director general of the Office for Health Improvement and Disparities - promised an announcement of this year's public health grant was imminent. This comes following criticism from a coalition of NHS and public health groups as to the delay - with the Association of Directors of Public Health, the NHS Confederation and the Local Government Association (LGA) among the groups highlighting the delay was causing a risk to the public's wellbeing.
Asked about the lack of certainty caused by both the missing public health grant and the fact that she and her colleagues around the country cannot be sure how much funding they will receive for drug and alcohol treatment for the financial year 2024-2025, Ms Wiseman told MPs on Thursday this had an impact on staff retention adding: "And we didn't know the amount that we were getting next year until last week. And I still don't know the public health grant for the first of April.
"So at the moment, we're taking risks in the local authority in that we are going forward with our commissioning of services and recruiting staff and hoping that we get the the outcome that we need from from the Government announcement."
She said this made holding onto expertise "incredibly challenging". She said: "Even if we're providing assurances to staff, you know, that we'll protect [services] if the money didn't come in and staff are very aware that it wouldn't they wouldn't have a job from the next year and there would be redundancy."
Ms Wiseman said this had been an issue across the country over the decade - and this had led to the "variable" expertise in public health roles around the country.
The joint statement, backed by the coalition of organisations, said: "The Government’s delay in publishing the public health grant allocation for 2023/24 is putting public health services at risk and adding unnecessary strain on an already pressured system.
"In addition to not yet knowing what the public health budget will look like for the coming year, we are extremely concerned that the delay will be exacerbated by either only a small increase or another flat cash settlement.
"Despite several important Government strategies being sidelined or delayed, including the health disparities and gambling reform white papers and Khan review, there have been a series of promising announcements giving a commitment to public health initiatives. However, these initiatives are not being adequately – or consistently – funded."
In the Houses of Parliament, Dame Meg Hillier, the MP who chairs the Public Accounts Committee, said this was a "very regretful delay".
Jonathan Marron responded: "As you think you will understand that we've had a series of challenging and robust decisions to make on funding to the NHS and local government or but this year we are making final decisions on public health grant and expect to have it over shortly."
He said while it was very late, it was "not unusually late " compared to the previous three years.
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