New Labour's Health Policy Taking Shape

A tough line against illegal drugs and smoking are two main components of the new Government's approach to public health policy, commitment to which is indicated by the appointment of Tessa Jowell as Public Health Minister. However, there are mixed signals in relation to the Government's policy on alcohol. The Government has made efforts to tackle alcopops, but it appears to be considering reducing alcohol taxes and possibly also further relaxing the licensing laws.

Smoking and illegal drugs

The Government made clear immediately its determination to tackle smoking and to ban tobacco advertising and sponsorship.

Ann Taylor, the President of the Council and Leader of the House, has been given the job of overseeing the Government's plan to tackle drug misuse and to chair the Ministerial anti-drugs committee.

Announcing her appointment, the Prime Minister, the Rt. Hon. Tony Blair MP, said: "I have asked Ann Taylor to chair a high-powered Cabinet committee to tackle the menace of drugs. I want to breathe new life into the battle against drugs. I want to draw together all parts of the community - police, teachers, our health professionals, parents and youngsters - to work together against this modern evil. We will hit hard on drugs and on the drugs trade. And this will run alongside a strategy to deal with lack of educational opportunity, poverty of ambition, homelessness and social decay. That is what our young people deserve." Mrs Taylor said that tackling drug misuse was a priority for the Government and one of its biggest challenges. She said: "Drugs wreck lives and damage communities and can corrupt the energy and vitality of our young people."

The Government's opposition to legalisation or decriminalisation of drugs was reiterated by Home Office Minister George Howarth, addressing the Chief Police Officers' drug conference in June.

Mr. Howarth said that any debate about legalisation or decriminalisation detracts from the message that drugs destroy lives.

He continued: 'Drugs devastate those who take them, their families and their communities. Every city, town and village is affected in some way. I refuse to accept that drugs have become part of growing up. Just one in four young people have taken drugs in the last year and even fewer - just one in seven - has done so in the last month. But these figures are too high. The Government is determined to repair those communities damaged by drug use - by getting young people into employment and drug users into treatment.'

Mr Howarth stressed the Government's co-ordinated approach to tackling drugs and detailed measures it will be taking. These include the Testing and Treatment Order, part of the Crime and Disorder Bill, which aims to break the link between drugs and crime.

Overall Public Health Strategy

Ms Jowell announced that the Government is to launch a new approach to public health strategy designed to tackle 'the root causes of ill health' and, especially, health inequalities.

The implications of the proposed new approach for alcohol policy are unclear. Under the previous Government, the principal targets in relation to alcohol policy were contained in its health strategy, 'Health of the Nation'. The targets were reduced proportions of adults exceeding the `sensible limits', which were then increased.

Announcing the new Government's approach, Ms Jowell, without referring specifically to alcohol, criticised 'Health of the Nation' for, amongst other things, an "excessive emphasis on lifestyle issues that cast the responsibility back on to the individual".

Ms Jowell announced an autumn Green Paper for health strategy in England; an independent review of health inequalities by Sir Donald Acheson, the former Chief Medical Officer for England; `Our Healthier Nation' - a new approach to health targets and new plans to promote healthy schools and workplaces.

Ms Jowell said that the Government sought to attack the underlying causes of ill-health and to break the cycle of social and economic deprivation and social exclusion. This signalled a major change in the nation's policy,

"to maximise good health, as well as treating sickness. You might call it being tough on the causes of ill health. Poverty, unemployment, bad housing, social isolation, pollution, ethnic minority status and gender have for too long been regarded as peripheral to health policy. Public health has been marginalised and its laws and structures have been neglected."

Ms Jowell said that the Health of the Nation strategy "gives us something to work from but leaves much to be desired. It ignored health inequalities and paid little more than lip service to the essential ingredient of collaboration across government. It failed to consider population groups. By focusing on diseases and services it cast the burden back on to the NHS and its excessive emphasis on lifestyle issues cast the responsibility back on to the individual.

"Our Healthier Nation, the new approach to be set out in the Green Paper, will address these issues effectively. It will set out current work, recognise inequalities, emphasise the need for local as well as national targets, and take account of population groups - children, the working age population, elderly people - so that everyone is included.

"We shall build on what has been done, not sweep it all away. It was sensible to concentrate on the biggest killers and causes of avoidable ill-health, but we must maintain a relatively small number of health targets and for these to be defined with quantified, dated changes."

Ms Jowell also set out the proposed collaboration on schools and workplaces: "Inequalities are set in childhood and this is the area of greatest potential. Healthy schools will be one of the first priorities for our new health strategy. This is about more than health education, though that plays a part. It is more about developing a whole-school ethos which promotes health and well-being.

"Healthy schools can help to break the cycle of inequality. Teenage pregnancy for instance is all too likely to be a cause as well as a symptom of poor education, unemployment and social exclusion. If a healthy school can keep a child from following her mother by getting pregnant at 17, she has a better chance of getting qualifications, getting a job, breaking out of the loop.

"There have already been pilot healthy schools in this country as part of the European Network. There is a great deal of work going on in schools and education authorities all over the country. David Blunkett and I are already looking to encourage this and to spread good practice. The potential is enormous."

"Healthy workplaces are another area where we shall concentrate attention. A healthy workforce has benefits for individuals, for their families, for businesses and for the country as a whole. And when I say `workforce' I mean all of the population of working age, whether they are in conventional employment or not.

"Different groups will need different approaches. The workplace is one especially promising setting. Yet the CBI's figures for sickness absence show that in 1996 there were 187 million days lost to sickness - 12 million more than in 1994.