Town halls offered healthcare bonus

Town halls will be rewarded for cutting tooth decay in children and boosting breastfeeding under plans to be unveiled.

Health Secretary Andrew Lansley is expected to announce plans that would see councils allocated more than £2 billion to look after public health, a responsibility that has not lain with local authorities since the 1970s.

Under the system, councils will be judged against a range of measures including reducing the number of falls in older people and increasing breastfeeding rates, as well as factors such as truancy, air pollution, domestic violence and homelessness.

Data will be collected on more than 60 factors that influence health, and a "Health Premium" incentive scheme would see the most successful councils given extra funds.

Councils will be left to decide which practical steps they take to achieve the improvements laid out by the Government.

Andrew Lansley is expected to announce
a 'Health Premium' incentive scheme

Mr Lansley is to set out the new Public Health Outcomes Framework in a speech at the Faculty of Public Health.

According to the Daily Telegraph, he says that 2000 to 2010 was a decade in which public health was seen as "something to be sidelined".

He will reportedly say: "Obesity rates from 2000 to 2010 rose from 21.2% to 26.1% so now over a quarter of adults are obese. Sexually transmitted infections, after the steep declines in the 80s to 90s, doubled in the subsequent decade. And health inequalities persist, with gaps in life expectancy of over a decade between people born in the richest areas and people born in the poorest."

The public health budget is to be ring-fenced so it cannot be used to shore up day-to-day spending, he is expected to say. Next year £5.2 billion will be spent on public health, with the Government increasing the budget in real terms each year after that.

The announcement comes as the Commons Health Committee is this week expected to claim the Government's controversial NHS reforms are obstructing efforts to make the service more efficient.