What exactly is the grant for public health, and how is it put to use?

The Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) budget is the source of funding for the public health grant that is distributed to local municipal governments. To provide essential preventative services that contribute to the maintenance of health, it is utilized. In addition to broader public health support across local authorities and the National Health Service (NHS), this includes services for quitting smoking, services for substance abuse and alcoholism, services for the health of children, and sexual health services.

Local authorities have been provided with additional cash that is time-limited to provide services and assistance for smoking, as well as treatment for substance abuse and alcoholism. It has been decided that funding for drugs and alcohol will be allocated for the period of 2022/23 to 2024/25 while funding for smoking services and support will be allocated for the period of 2024/25 to 2028/29. We have incorporated these increased funds into our projections accordingly. (We have assumed that all additional funding for smoking services and support goes to smoking services;

However, local areas only need to maintain the same level of spending as in 2022/23, which means that this could free up monies that could be reallocated elsewhere across the public health provision system. This is another assumption that we have made, which is that all of the additional funding for drug and alcohol programs is allocated to adult program services.

The amount of money that will be allocated for the public health grant in 2024/25 is £3.6 billion (this figure includes additional funding for drug and alcohol treatment as well as services to help people quit smoking). Figure 1 illustrates the anticipated expenditures for each component of the provision of public health services. Whereas it is anticipated that the biggest areas of projected spending will be on: the provision of services for children aged 0 to 5 years, which mostly consists of health visitors for infants and mothers (worth £0.9 billion). Sexual health services (£0.5 billion) and drug and alcohol services for adults (£0.9 billion), of which £0.3 billion comes from increased financing.