Re: Spending on public health cut as councils look to save money
"If you pay peanuts, you get monkeys" is an old saying, and most of UK public health expenditure is on staff. On the same day as the BMJ reported the King's Fund data on cuts to local authority public health spending, Public Health England produced online a Health Profile for England (Gateway number 2017051 HTML). For deaths across the age range 15 - 49 years, alcohol and drug use is the behavioural risk factor associated with the highest proportion of deaths. But today's report on expenditure found a cut of 5.5% in spending on such substance misuse.
By the beginning of the 21st Century, we were beginning to understand what made services for drug and alcohol problems effective. In 2002 I could write confidently that "the most obvious change in many types of UK service over the last few years has been the growth of inter-professional teamwork to address the varied needs of clients, combined with multi-professional, inter-agency co-operation in developing the quality of practice".[1] Human capital is decisive, to engage with the hydra of substance use disorders. Be sure, that if we cut back on skilled staff, that poisonous hydra will grow more and more heads!
[1] Caan W. The nature of heroin and cocaine dependence. In (Caan W, De Belleroche J, Ed.s) Drink, Drugs and Dependence. London: Routledge, 2002, 171-195.
Competing interests:
About 40 years' research on problems related to alcohol
13 July 2017
Woody Caan
Co-chair, Alcohol special interest group, Faculty of Public Health
"If you pay peanuts, you get monkeys" is an old saying, and most of UK public health expenditure is on staff. On the same day as the BMJ reported the King's Fund data on cuts to local authority public health spending, Public Health England produced online a Health Profile for England (Gateway number 2017051 HTML). For deaths across the age range 15 - 49 years, alcohol and drug use is the behavioural risk factor associated with the highest proportion of deaths. But today's report on expenditure found a cut of 5.5% in spending on such substance misuse.
By the beginning of the 21st Century, we were beginning to understand what made services for drug and alcohol problems effective. In 2002 I could write confidently that "the most obvious change in many types of UK service over the last few years has been the growth of inter-professional teamwork to address the varied needs of clients, combined with multi-professional, inter-agency co-operation in developing the quality of practice".[1] Human capital is decisive, to engage with the hydra of substance use disorders. Be sure, that if we cut back on skilled staff, that poisonous hydra will grow more and more heads!
[1] Caan W. The nature of heroin and cocaine dependence. In (Caan W, De Belleroche J, Ed.s) Drink, Drugs and Dependence. London: Routledge, 2002, 171-195.
Competing interests: About 40 years' research on problems related to alcohol