Physios to push public health

The report, from the NHS Future Forum panel of government advisers, says NHS staff should discuss lifestyle issues such as diet, exercise, smoking and drinking habits with patients at every opportunity.

‘The NHS’s role in the public’s health’ report recommends health professionals ‘use every contact with the public to help them improve their health’. This should be a ‘core staff responsibility in the NHS Constitution’, the report says.

CSP campaigns and communications director Lynne Stockbridge said physiotherapists were ‘ideally placed to help advise patients on health and wellbeing’. And she stressed that most already did this.

‘Many physiotherapists are already actively engaged in improving public health through early intervention; primary and secondary prevention; the treatment and rehabilitation of chronic and long-term conditions; keeping people fit to work; and promoting the benefits of regular physical activity for good health and wellbeing,’ Ms Stockbridge said.

The report also said the NHS must do more to improve the health and wellbeing of its 1.4 million workforce, and that trusts should ensure the implementation of the Boorman report on reducing staff sickness absence.

The public health report, presented to government on 10 January, is one of four to come out of the Future Forum’s second phase of work, after it advised on changes to the Health and Social Care Bill last year.

Other reports published in this phase cover NHS integration; education and training; and information.

A key recommendation of the education and training report is that clinical commissioning groups should work with local education and training boards to increase community training places for allied health professionals.

Ms Stockbridge said: ‘The government has accepted the Future Forum’s proposal that the prevention of poor health and the promotion of healthy living must be embedded in the NHS’s day-to-day business.

‘This presents clear opportunities for the physiotherapy profession.’

For more information see www.dh.org.uk