CIEH highlight the role of environmental health in Labour’s public health commitments

CIEH welcome the Labour Party’s manifesto commitment to ‘embed a greater focus on prevention throughout the entire healthcare system’ and highlight the need to enhance the integration of Environmental Health within the wider Public Health workforce. 

Labour’s proposals to strengthen the local delivery model of healthcare services serve as a key mechanism to achieve CIEH’s manifesto ask to strengthen the capacity of environmental health teams within the public health workforce, through both supplying adequate funding and ensuring their inclusion across all public health development plans at all levels of government.  

CIEH are in agreement with Labour’s assertation that ‘prevention will always be better, and cheaper, than a cure’. Environmental health professionals play a frontline role in protecting the nation’s health, from controlling infectious and communicable diseases like COVID-19, enforcing workplace health and safety regulations, safeguarding clean air and inspecting local food businesses to ensure quality control.  

Labour made a range of further pledges that echo CIEH’s manifesto. We note Labour’s commitment to align local authorities with the net zero transition through the introduction of a ‘land-use framework’ and ‘Local Power Plan’ and urge the party to engage with our members to inform its detail.  Labour’s further proposal to impose automatic and severe fines for companies complicit in sewage dumping align with our calls for tougher actions to protect our waterways.  

Louise Hosking, Executive Director of Environmental Health at CIEH, said: 

“Environmental health professionals serve a unique and key role by safeguarding the UK’s public health, crucial to delivering the ambitions to strengthen the local delivery model of healthcare.  

CIEH welcome Labour’s commitment to build a preventative public health strategy and raise the need for greater recognition of environmental health’s role within this.  

We continue to call on all parties to commit to supporting environmental health within the wider public health workforce in our manifesto.”