Not only are children from smoking households three to four times as likely to start the habit, but over a £1bn could also be spent elsewhere in the Greater Manchester economy, instead of on tobacco, if the region reduced its smoking figures to a target of 13% over the next five years.
That’s just some two of the major findings in a new public health blue-print for Greater Manchester – the first of this scale of ambition in England – which brings together best practice, to improve health and reduce health inequalities across the area.
The hundred-page plus plan is made up of a series of small to major interventions or recommendations, which collectively will have a major impact on the health of the 2.8 million people who live here. It also identifies which strategies could be carried out across Greater Manchester to complement the individual work of its ten boroughs who have also fed into the plan.
Called the Greater Manchester Population Health Plan, it looks at all aspects of life stages – and has also been informed by the views of people who live and work here during a major exercise to ask people what mattered to them most about their health and wellbeing.
It also identifies some of the biggest issues in the region including:
• Almost a fifth of adults smoke in Greater Manchester
• More than a third of our children have dental decay;
• A fifth of adults binge drink;
• Just under a quarter of adults do very little or no exercise;
• And around two thirds of adults are overweight or obese;
• Last year (2016) one in three children in Greater Manchester did not achieve a good level of development by the end of reception;
• One of out of 25 people in Greater Manchester live in the ten per cent most disadvantaged areas in the country.
Jon Rouse, Chief officer of the Greater Manchester Health and Social Care Partnership – the body overseeing the devolution of the region’s £6n health and social care budget – said: “This plan is unique because it states the case for Greater Manchester – and sums up the public health needs for the region. It will complement the individual work in the ten areas of Greater Manchester – and highlights where issues can be tackled more effectively by working together from a Greater Manchester stance.
“It’s also the product of thousands of conversations last year with the people who live and work in this area about how they could take charge of their own health.”
Jane Pilkington, Deputy Director of Population Health for the Greater Manchester Health and Social Care Partnership, said:
“Devolution has enabled us to formulate a plan that reorientates the system towards prevention and a focus on population health and wellbeing.
“We know that poor health and disadvantages are inextricably linked and that disadvantage starts before birth and accumulates through life. This is why we have structured our approach to start well, live well and age well.”
