Public health annual report

Public Health is the term given to the work we do to improve people's health, improve health services, reduce inequalities in health, prevent illness and disease,; and improve life expectancy of our residents.  

Our work includes promoting healthy lifestyles, identifying and targeting the greatest health needs of our communities, commissioning evidence-based services and interventions and detecting, preventing and responding to infectious diseases. 

Annual Report of the Director of Public Health 

The Director of Public Health Annual Report describes how we work together collectively to improve the health and wellbeing of our communities. It highlights the different experiences of health and illness across the county and the key challenges we face.

Speaking on the publication of the 2023 Annual Report the County Durham Director or Public Health, Amanda Healy said:

"This year's report '10 years in Local Authority - Looking back to plan ahead' includes an in-depth focus on 10 years of Public Health in the Local Authority. The Health and Social Care Act 2012 highlighted the importance of a population health approach to addressing health inequalities. It moved the public health function and services, including the Director of Public Health's statutory responsibilities, from the NHS to local councils in April 2013, giving them responsibility for implementing local strategies to improve the health of their populations.

The report highlights, and provides examples on the enhanced collaboration work, involving health, social care, council staff, wider partners and communities, the move into the local authority has established. It also recognises some the challenges faced over the last 10 years, such as the response and recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic.

The annual report provides an update on 10 years of the Health and Wellbeing Board linking to the social determinants of health (including economy) and the work undertaken against the four current key health priorities for County Durham:

• Making smoking history;
• Enabling healthy weight for all; 
• Improving mental health, resilience, and wellbeing; and
• Reducing alcohol harms.

Looking ahead I believe we are on a firm foundation to plan our next ten years. We have ambitions that will stretch us. Within the next ten years we are ambitious for improvements to health and wellbeing. This includes our aim to be a truly smokefree County Durham."

Director of Public Health Annual Report 2023 (PDF) [4MB]

All of the Director of Public Health Annual Reports are available to download from the Durham Insight website where they sit alongside the publicly available intelligence and population data for our county that informs the reports.

Health and wellbeing across County Durham

The Joint Strategic Needs and Asset Assessment (JSNAA) in County Durham builds a picture of current and future health and wellbeing needs of local people. It's a suite of resources locally that helps to inform the planning and improvement of local services and guides us in making the best use of funding available. We use it to shape joint commissioning priorities to improve health and wellbeing as well as reduce health inequalities in our communities.

You can read more about the JSNAA on Durham Insight.