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Health must be embedded across all government policy, MPs say

BMJ 2016; 354 doi: https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.i4715 (Published 01 September 2016) Cite this as: BMJ 2016;354:i4715
  1. Ingrid Torjesen
  1. London

A new Cabinet Office minister post should be created to take responsibility for embedding health across all areas of government policy to ensure that health inequalities were tackled promptly and nationally, a committee of MPs has said.

This minister is needed, said a House of Commons Health Committee report on public health,1 because “tackling health inequalities and improving public health will not primarily happen in hospitals, even though hospitals receive the lion’s share of health funding. Rather, it requires a whole life course approach, tackling the wider determinants of health in local communities, and through joined-up policy making at a national level.”

The report said that cuts to public health and its frontline services in England were a false economy, because …

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