Questions to be asked over health budget cuts

COUNCILLORS WILL be asking questions at a meeting today about where a £1.25m funding cut from an authority’s public health budget is going.

The reduction includes £300,000 from the sexual health service budget, which is “probably not a good idea” at a time sexually transmitted infections (STIs) are on the rise, said the chairman of Hull’s Health and Wellbeing Board, Coun Colin Inglis.

The decision to make cuts, including slashing £500,000 from the drugs and alcohol service and £400,000 from weight management services, has already been made by Hull Council’s Cabinet.

Coun Inglis said the sexual health service had not been as successful as hoped, as STIs were on the increase. He has heard of people turning up to find no staff, and coming back the next day and finding the same situation.

He added: “I think they are having problems with staffing anyway, but it doesn’t mean cutting it will improve it – it will just make it worse.

“Given the increase in STIs it’s probably not a good idea.”

Coun Inglis said no-one could answer his questions at a meeting in December and when it was reconvened there were not enough people from the clinical commissioning group to make the meeting quorum.

He said: “The money will be going somewhere in to adult social care. We are supposed to advise on the best use of the public health budget, but we can’t do that when you don’t know where the money is going to be spent.”

Last year, 420,000 diagnoses of STIs were made in England.