Unit 12 –Public Health
Assignment 1

This is a report on the Public Health strategies in the UK which describes key aspects of Public Health Policy. The Summary of key aspects will include:

* Monitoring the Health status and identifying health needs of a population. * Programmes to reduce risk and screen for disease. * Control of communicable diseases. * Promoting the health of the population. * Planning and evaluating health and care provision.

Monitoring the health
This is tracking changes in the health of the population and alerting people of potential problems. This will be done when you go for your first GP appointment. The doctor might ask for a history of yourself and your family for example if you were there because you had an illness then they might ask if your mother or farther ever had any serious illness or your grandparents.

Or if you were suffering from obesity they would ask if any of your close relatives were obese. If you were obese then each time you went to the doctors they would check your weight each time you visited the GP’s. This will be to make sure that the person is not gaining any more weight. There will be advice given to the patient each time so that they can join weight loss programmes (weight watchers)

Programs to reduce risk and screen for disease
This program is in place to reduce the risk of diabetes they will monitored by taking regular weights and regular checks of the patients feet and eyes, urine samples are taken and tested for glucose and sugar, they will also take glucose tolerance tests. These are all the ways to test and also to monitor someone who possible has it to stop it getting worse. For people that haven’t got diabetes but it is in the family history they will also be checked for it. For people who have diabetes they are given free gym memberships, they also get put on a diet plan by their GP to help them control it.

To reduce the risk of smoking, free quit smoking kits are handed out to anyone who wants them and there are also free consultations with people who would help you try and stop smoking. In supermarkets cigarettes are not allowed to be shown in the open they have to be covered with a black screen. Also on the packets they now put pictures of people’s lungs that have cancer and pictures that are there to try and put people off smoking.

Control of communicable diseases
Control of a community is very important as this will stop and diseases or infections spreading across the country so it is very important for communities to have campaigns about infections like Measles, flu, whooping cough and other infections and diseases that can cause bad illnesses. Marketing strategies will be used so that people will be able to see and understand if and illness was to outbreak in a community. They will use things like Posters around schools, GP’s, Hospitals and other communal areas. Leaflets are always available from Hospitals and GP surgeries not only this but most GP’s offer free vaccinations so people are less likely to catch and infections. Schools use marketing as much as possible as there will always be a risk of infections spreading quickly through schools as there are always people in this environment.

For example if there was an outbreak of measles in a school then the school would send out information to the parents of the children letting them know that there has been an outbreak and if the child has any signs and symptoms they would need to go to the doctors/hospital. Posters would be out up and free information would be given out to anyone who wanted it. If the outbreak was really bad then the school might have to be shut down for a few days so it gives the infection enough time to go so it couldn’t infect any more people in the school.

Promoting the health of the population
Many people like Jamie Oliver are always trying to promote healthy eating in schools, colleges and more. They do this by using marketing