The Public Health Team at Leicestershire County Council have a number of responsibilities to keep the people of Leicestershire healthy.
This means that we're responsible for making sure there are a wide range of services available to help people in Leicestershire to stay healthy. We do this by commissioning, or buying in, certain services from other organisations. Examples of this include our sexual health service.
Public health places a great deal of importance on partnership working between councils, health professionals and other organisations to look at the health of people in Leicestershire.
Being healthy is not just about tackling illness. It looks at wider factors that affect your quality of life and general wellbeing. This includes things like education, income, housing and employment, as well as lifestyle issues like smoking, alcohol and exercise.
Public health has several main areas of work:
- Health and Wellbeing - through supporting lifestyle change, and working with communities to tackle the issues that cause health inequalities
- Health Protection - managing infectious disease, environmental health hazards and health emergencies, plus vaccination and screening programmes
- NHS Support - using evidence and patient experience to ensure the effectiveness of treatment and care
- Public Health Knowledge - using health data and information to monitor progress in improving and protecting health, and ensuring effective health services
