Time to put health at the heart of all policy making

Improving the health of people in the UK will improve the productivity of our nation, and enhancing our health and care industries will provide a platform for creating health related jobs: the “health dividend.”1 The next UK government therefore needs to make health central to all its policies.2 And it must not surrender our rights to health in the post-Brexit era.3

Local authorities have recognised the opportunity of getting health into all policies, including education, environment, economy, licensing, leisure, and town planning, as they seek to become “public health councils.”4 National government must now become a public health government. The new government must think beyond its term of office and implement policies through which the UK grows the wellbeing of future generations.