UK
HDA comment on Delivering Choosing Health
By Health Development Agency
Mar 21, 2005, 15:22

The publication of Delivering Choosing Health provides some helpful clarification on how the proposals in the white paper will work in practice.

The HDA has already delivered on the Choosing Health commitment to produce guidance for NHS buildings to become smokefree. This guidance gives clear step by step advice on getting a smokefree policy into practice, and emphasises the need for smokers � both patients and staff � to be given practical support and advice, which could encourage more people to quit smoking.

In addition, the HDA and NICE have been working on a joint programme of work on guidance for management of obesity which has been ongoing for the last 18 months, and this work is flagged as forming part of the �care pathway� for obesity, providing a model for prevention and treatment.

The plan clearly highlights the need for evidence-based guidance in a number of key public health areas. The new National Institute of Health and Clinical Excellence (to be formed from the transfer of the HDA�s core functions to NICE) will be generating such guidance to support the implementation of the plan. We are pleased to see new NICE highlighted as taking responsibility for continuing the success of the HDA�s work on evidence-based public health, as well as a playing a role in the health aspects of regulatory impact assessment.

Delivering Choosing Health also rightly acknowledges the value of community based health advisors, and a useful extension of their role could include gathering evidence from practice to feed into the public health evidence system established by the HDA.

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