Councils have been forced to cut spending on public health services by 5% in the past four years, according to new analysis by The King’s Fund.
The charity found that councils are planning on spending £2.52bn on public health services in 2017/18, compared to £2.6bn the previous year. On a like-for-like basis, this is 5% less than the amount spent in 2013/14.
The analysis reveals that spending on most vital public health services will be cut this year, such as a 5% reduction on sexual health services, a 5.5% cut on tackling drug misuse in adults, and a 15% cut on stop smoking services.
‘These planned cuts in services are the result of central government funding cuts that are increasingly forcing councils to make difficult choices about which services they fund,’ said David Buck, senior fellow in Public Health and Inequalities at The King’s Fund, said:
‘Reducing spending on public health is short-sighted at the best of times. But at a time when the rate of syphilis is at its highest level for 70 years, to cut spending on sexual health services is the falsest of false economies and is storing up problems for the future.’
