9th January 2017
Short weekly update from the CEO of Public Health England (PHE), including:
- Happy New Year and first message of 2017 is also the first to be hosted on PHE’s blog, Public Health Matters
- Dr Mary E. Black, PHE’s head of digital strategy, published a blog on the BMJ about the profound effect that smoking has had on her family and the responsibility that we all have to make the NHS a place that provides a supportive tobacco-free environment for everyone – well worth a read
- New Year resolutions – PHE was there to support people with three new campaigns:
- new Be Food Smart app allows people to scan the barcode of more than 112,000 everyday food or drink products to see how much sugar, saturated fat and salt they contain at a glance
- the How Are You? health quiz for adults to find out where they can take a little action to make a big difference to their health
- PHE’s Smokefree campaign also took advantage of the New Year to encourage smokers to quit, with hard hitting TV adverts and a new film featuring children talking about the harms of smoking
- A new package of measures funded by NHS England includes £15 million to support further roll out of the Healthier You: NHS Diabetes Prevention Programme over the next two years across 13 new areas
- The European Centre for Disease Control has been developing standards for the delivery of microbiology in public health, and the recent assessment for the UK confirms the strong and effective infrastructure we have for this work – a great endorsement for our laboratory scientists and microbiologists as we begin the new year
- the recent edition of Public Sector Focus, which features PHE Chief Knowledge Officer Professor John Newton giving his take on the role of digital technology to improve services and outcomes
