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Issue 5, January 2000, pp.3.
The new Health Development Agency
Dominic McVey
The
White Paper Saving Lives: Our Healthier Nation(1) presents a vision of
public health action founded on partnerships between and among individuals,
communities and government, with a special focus on tackling health inequalities.
This concept of a new, much broader, infrastructure for public health
is the most innovative aspect of the government's policy. How to create
and sustain effective partnerships and create active participation within
local communities is thus one of the key health development challenges.
However, the White Paper noted that the variable quality of public health
work and a lack of sufficiently robust evidence were barriers to standard
setting. In order to address some of these problems, a new Health Development
Agency (HDA) will be set up to help organisations and individual practitioners
base their work on the highest standards and, over time, raise the quality
of the public health function in England. The Health Education Authority
(HEA) will be transformed into this new agency in 2000.
Like the HEA, the new agency will be part of the National Health Service,
with Special Health Authority status. It will be an important part of
the new public health infrastructure and a key part of its remit will
be to contribute towards the reduction of health inequalities. It is envisaged
that the HDA will work in partnership with other organisations to fulfil
the following functions:
- to disseminate information and evidence of good practice in an authoritative, timely and effective manner;
- to maintain an up-to-date map of the evidence base for public health and health improvement;
- to commission research and evaluation to fill the gaps in the existing evidence base;
- to advise on the setting of standards for public health and health promotion practice, and on the implementation of those standards at national and local level;
- to provide advice on targeting health promotion effectively at the most disadvantaged in society and narrowing the health gap;
- to advise on the education and training needs of the public health workforce and the work required to develop their capacity and capability to deliver the new agenda.
The new organisation
will be tuned in to local and regional needs and will not duplicate the
efforts of other agencies. On standard setting, for example, the HDA will
identify what already exists and commission or advise on work that is
needed to fill the gaps. It is clear that the organisation will be very
much research led, as the role of research within the new HDA and the
new public health agenda will be pivotal to achieving success. Social
approaches to the organisation and the delivery of public health, intuitively
make a lot of sense to people working in the field, as practitioners tend
to believe these methods have considerable potential for health improvement.
It is essential, however, to gather evidence that such approaches are
effective. Identifying robust indicators of success, finding reliable
methods for evaluating complex innovative interventions and providing
models of good practice in cross-sectoral working are some of the tasks
ahead.
It is early days to pronounce on the precise shape of the HEA's successor,
but work is in progress and a number of consultation events are taking
place with key stakeholders to help shape the new Health Development Agency.
What is certain is that the HDA needs to galvanise all the players who
are working to improve health to have an impact and make a difference.
The effectiveness of cross-sectoral partnerships will be pivotal in improving
the nation's health.
The Health Education Authority can be contacted at:
Trevelyan House
30 Great Peter St.
London
SW1P 2HW
Tel: +44 (0)171 2225300
www.hea.org.uk/
Dominic McVey is Head of Research at the Health Education Authority
References:
1. Secretary of State for Health (1999) Saving Lives: Our Healthier
Nation, London: the Stationery Office.