B&NES’ Director of Public Health, Dr Bruce Laurence, has used his annual report to highlight that, although the area is generally a healthy place to live, there are still issues to tackle.
The report focuses on tackling diabetes and the impact of child poverty across the local area, and labels them as key challenges.
He also sets out a vision for moving towards a smoke-free area, given that tobacco remains the single biggest cause of preventable illness, disability and death.
In the report, entitled The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, Dr Laurence demonstrates that Public Health’s move into local government has been a very positive development because the Council’s role in shaping healthy places and communities is so influential in improving health and wellbeing.
Local people’s voices are also featured in the report talking about the things that influence their health from income, employment and housing to not smoking, eating well and exercising.
There is a consistent theme about the importance of managing stress on feeling well.
Dr Laurence said: “The ‘Good’ I describe in the report is the long life expectancy and high levels of physical and mental health and wellbeing that the majority of Bath and North East Somerset’s residents enjoy compared to other parts of England.
“The ‘Bad’ is the very significant set of health challenges that still afflict us, in particular those illnesses and disabilities that are not due to bad luck, but that are avoidable if only we all had the means, the knowledge and the will to lead healthier lifestyles.
“This is illustrated by the sections on diabetes and smoking.
“The ‘Ugly’ is embodied in the persistent and unacceptable levels of health inequality that we have throughout the UK, exemplified in Bath and North East Somerset by the seven year difference in male life expectancy between the highest and lowest ranked wards.”
Diabetes levels have been steadily increasing locally, regionally and nationally. In Bath and North East Somerset prevalence has increased slightly from 4% in 2008-2009 to 4.6% in 2012-2013.
Diabetes is expected to continue to increase by approximately 150-200 people per year adding up to a 34% rise between 2005 and 2025.
Type 2 diabetes is mainly responsible for the great increases of recent years and this type is very much linked with being overweight, although in a small number of cases people of normal weight can develop the condition.
People with diabetes are 44% more likely to have a heart attack, 32% more likely to have a stroke, 73% more likely to have a hospital admission related to heart failure and 44% more likely to die in any given year than the general population in the same area.
The Council is working hard to encourage and make it easier for people to manage their weight and be physically active whether through the leisure facilities it provides, building opportunities for walking and cycling into its planning and transport infrastructure or commissioning specific services, such as weight management, for different groups of people.
Dr Laurence chose to shine a spotlight on child poverty because of its impact on children’s physical and mental health and also their development and success in later life.
Children from poor families are more likely to die in their first year of life, have higher rates of accidents, are more likely to miss school as a result of illness and are nearly three times as likely to suffer mental health problems.
According to the End Child Poverty report, about 12% (4,056 children) of children in Bath and North East Somerset live in poverty.
Poverty also impacts on how well children do at school. According to 2012/13 data, children eligible for Free School Meals in Bath and North East Somerset performed significantly worse in the Key Stage 2 Reading, Writing and Mathematics attainment measure with only 54% at the expected level compared to 82% of their peers not eligible for free school meals.
No one organisation can tackle this on its own but the Council is working to support children and families in poverty – the Council has a strategy aimed at developing healthy children being brought up in an area where there are places to play outside, good schools, supportive communities and accessible leisure activities for children of different ages.
The Connecting Families team in the Council works to intervene early and take action to try to prevent negative future outcomes for children, providing intensive home-based professional support for families.
The School Improvement and Achievement Service is committed to supporting schools in improving outcomes for all pupils including the most vulnerable.
The report also highlights that, despite reductions in levels of smoking, it remains the single greatest preventable threat to health in the area.
In Bath and North East Somerset 83% of people don’t smoke, which is much better than the national average but there are still 23,000 adult smokers.
As well as helping people quit, Dr Laurence says there is also a need to do all that we can to stop the next generation of children taking up the habit, as well as protecting people from second-hand smoke.
The Council has introduced a scheme to encourage adults not to smoke where children are playing through clear signs in 61 playgrounds across the area.
The report is available at www.bathnes.gov.uk/director-public-health-report.
