Last Monday, Brent Council Cabinet considered a report on public health in Brent. It was a disappointing read. It dutifully goes through various facts and figures about public health and the good work being done, but there is little sense of an organisation grasping new opportunities.
I think this is a great disappointment as public health is an area that has come back to local government with a ringfenced budget and there should be plenty of opportunities to rethink public health delivery in terms of synergies with other local government functions. Brent has developed strategies in food growing, promotion of sports, regulation of unwelcome activities such as shisha or fast food that should have numerous implications for health. An imaginative approach should be able to find new ways of tackling thesae issues that the NHS or the Council alone have not previously attempted.
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