Issue - meetings

Background:

This report provided an overview of health protection arrangements within Medway in 2014/2015 and highlighted areas where arrangements should be strengthened.

It was noted that Health Protection involved planning and responding to incidents which may impact on the public’s health. These included outbreaks of communicable disease and environmental hazards such as chemicals and radiation. It also included the delivery of national screening and immunisation programmes.

A copy of the Health Protection Annual Report 2014/2015 was attached at Appendix 1 to the report, which provided an overview of the current health protection activities and highlighted that the health protection challenges in Medway were similar to other areas and the performance indicators were generally above the England average. However, further improvements could be made as outlined in the Annual Report and of particular importance were the need to:

•          Complete the plans for mobilisation of NHS resources in response to health protection incidents

•          Improve the accuracy of immunisation data, particularly childhood immunisations) and improve uptake in groups with low uptake rates.

•          Improve the coverage of cancer screening programmes, particularly for colorectal cancer.

Reasons:

Health Protection was a statutory function. Production of an annual report enabled Public Health to provide an overview of health protection arrangements within Medway.