This year I had the opportunity to attend the Public Health England conference for one day and I was swept up in the magnitude of work PHE undertakes in a number of arenas. As always with parallel sessions at conferences it was difficult to choose which sessions to attend as they were all very interesting and relevant.
Duncan Selbie opened the conference with thanking everyone who are working tirelessly to improve the health of the nation. Likewise at BIOS we would like to thank you all for engaging in the Public Health agenda and doing your part: having healthy conversations, signposting people to improve their own health and taking the time to find out what matters to your patients. He stressed the importance of the vaccination and screening programmes to prevent illness and the work undertaken by PHE to ensure we maintain population health. He conveyed that the focus of 2020 will continue with tackling tobacco consumption to create a smoke free society by 2030, childhood obesity, cleaner air and mental health were also in the 5 year plan. This October a digital resource will be launched to help people identify common mental health conditions either in themselves or others.
The Infectious diseases strategy 2020-2025 was then introduced by Professor Chris Witty and Professor Sharon Peacock. Currently the national immunisation programme prevents approx 2.75 million cases of infectious diseases per year.The main priorities of the strategy are to reduce infectious diseases in the elderly and the hard to reach groups and to tackle the problem of health inequalities in this area.
I chose to attend the session on “Social media and young people: friend or foe?” an increasing amount of young people are accessing social media. It was reported that one in eight 5-19 years olds have a mental health disorder. However, the question was posed, “has social media been made the scapegoat for mental health problems?” This session was presented as a mix of positive and negative effects of social media. Benefits included social media creating and sustaining connections, it is used as an information and support tool and boosting young people’s self-esteem. However, we need to be mindful of unhelpful comparisons- ‘compare and despair’ on social media as well as cyberbullying and sleep problems. Unfortunately, my question on the potential harm from blue light and near viewing was not fielded but despite the lack of robust evidence it is something for us to be aware of in our clinical practice.
Reducing the risk and inequalities for mothers and babies was an interesting session with some key data on smoking during pregnancy. We all know the harms of smoking and drinking during pregnancy but hearing that 37% of mothers who died in pregnancy were obese (data from 2014-16). Mothers who smoke during pregnancy are 36% more likely to have their pregnancy end in stillbirth. Smoking is the main modifiable risk factor for a range of poor pregnancy outcomes and therefore we could do more to support women early in their pregnancy to give up smoking.
During the lunch and break I browsed the e-posters and was delighted to see a poster on: ‘Screening children’s hearing and vision in schools: improving programme delivery in two London boroughs’ and got chatting to the author, a Public Health registrar. The poster illustrated the inequity in screening provision where the school nurses were carrying out vision screening in the 5-6 year old children in year 1 using Sonksen silver test. The evaluation has led to changes in the screening programme in this borough which is great but we need to encourage nationwide implementation of the PHE vision screening guidance to ensure equity.
Finally, the main session that I was most interested in attending and giving my view on was the “Healthy Child Programme-giving children the best start in life for the next ten years”. This programme will be developed over three phases: 0-2yrs, 2-7yrs and 7-24yrs. It was shocking to hear that 28% of children are not ready for school and so the focus was ‘school readiness’ as an outcome of the pre-school healthy child programme. Reducing inequality was at the core of the programme and therefore I see this an opportunity for us to lobby for a mandated equitable orthoptic led vision screening programme in the 4-5 yr old health needs assessment. This will ensure that every child is school ready by optimising their vision and giving them the chance to develop good social and motor skills and hence the best start throughout their whole life course.
Jigs Mehta, BIOS Public Health Lead
