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Health and Wellbeing Board |
19 November 2025 |
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Report of the Director of Public Health |
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Health Protection Board Annual Assurance Report 2025
Summary
1. The purpose of the report is to provide members of the Health and Wellbeing Board with an update on the health protection assurance arrangements in York and health protection activities over the past year.
2. A copy of the Health Protection Annual Report is attached at Annex A
Background
3. The protection of the health of the population is one of the mandated responsibilities given to local authorities as part of the Health and Social Care Act 2012. The Director of Public Health (DPH) for City of York Council is responsible under legislation for the discharge of the local authority’s public health functions.
4. The health protection element of these statutory responsibilities, and the responsibilities of the DPH are set out below:
a) The Secretary of State’s public health functions
b) Exercising the local authority’s functions in planning for, and responding to, emergencies that present a risk to the public’s health
c) Such other public health functions as the Secretary of State specifies in regulations
d) Responsible for the local authority’s public health response as a responsible authority under the Licensing Act 2023, such as making representations about licensing applications
e) A duty to ensure plans are in place to protect their population including through screening and immunisation.
5. Within City of York Council, the remit for health protection is delivered by the Public Health Team in partnership with the Public Protection and Emergency Planning teams.
6. The Humber and North Yorkshire Health and Care Partnership (Integrated Care Board or ICB) has responsibilities for health protection including, for example, arrangements for delivery of Infection Prevention and Control services in York through a joint agreement with York and North Yorkshire Public Health Teams.
7. The UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) core functions include protecting the public from infectious diseases, chemicals, radiation and environmental hazards and supporting emergency preparedness and response. The team responsible for delivering these functions sit at regional level and facilitate access to national experts in this field. In addition, a new Centre for Climate and Health Security has been launched within UKHSA to lead efforts to protect health in the context of a changing climate and provides a focus for partnerships and collaborations with academia, local authorities and other public sector organisations.
8. NHS England is responsible for commissioning and quality assuring population screening and immunisation programmes with the exception of COVID vaccination which is commissioned by HNY ICB.
9. The Humber and North Yorkshire ICB is a statutory NHS organisation and has a role as a Category One responder for Emergency Planning, Preparedness and Response. A Humber and North Yorkshire Local Health Resilience Partnership (LHRP) (co-chaired by the ICB COO and City of York Council DPH) is established which brings together NHS provider organisations, the Local Resilience Forum’s, UKHSA and local authority Public Health to ensure protocols and procedures are in place providing consistency of approach across the Humber and North Yorkshire footprint.
10. Health Protection Arrangements in York
11. One of the lessons learnt from the COVID-19 pandemic is that maintaining a focus on high quality and responsive health protection services is vitally important to protect and improve the health of people living in York. Local health and care organisations and leaders are operating in an increasingly complex national policy and commissioning environment and are required to maintain their effectiveness to protect and improve health in the face of multiple challenges.
12. York has a York Health Protection Committee which brings together the key partners across the health protection system to work collaboratively on actions to protect the health of the local population. This Committee is chaired by the DPH.
13. The work of the Health Protection Committee is driven by the health needs of local residents and includes both communicable and non communicable disease and environmental threats to health
a. National programmes for vaccination and immunisation
b. National screening programmes for antenatal and newborn, cancer (bowel, breast and cervical), diabetic eye screening and screening for abdominal aortic aneurysm
c. Management of environmental health hazards, including those related to air pollution and food
d. Health emergency preparedness and response, including management of disease outbreaks and chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear hazards
e. Infection prevention and control in health and social care community settings
f. Other measures for the prevention, treatment and control of communicable disease and in response to specific incidents
Main/Key Issues to be Considered
14. The Health Protection Annual Report 2025 provides an overview of health protection activities over the past year and identifies a number of priorities for the coming year.
15. To highlight some of the main issues raised by the report:
a. Sexual Health services in York now operate under an agreed s75 arrangement with York Hospital, covering both contraception / sexual health and genitourinary medicine (GUM). This followed extensive public consultation and planning, to manage the service within a tight budget and mitigate the impact of some service reductions. The new service model has been implemented well.
b. Screening and immunisation programmes continue to perform well, with a new provider of School Aged Immunisation Services seeing improved rates of school vaccinations last winter season. There are still risks, for instance with no child immunisation programme reaching the 95% coverage threshold which protects the whole population from risk.
c. A number of new initiatives in Oral health, including those commissioned by public health and by the ICB, are increasing preventative opportunities particularly for school-aged children in York
d. For the first time outside of a pandemic, no areas in the city breached legal Air Quality limits within 2024/25, and the report demonstrates a number of key projects in this area.
Options
16. There are no options to consider. There is a statutory requirement for the Director of Public Health in a local area to be assured of a functioning health protection system, and this report to the Health and Wellbeing Board reflects this duty.
Strategic/Operational Plans
17. There is a general link across to the York Joint Health and Wellbeing Strategy 2022-2032 and the City of York Council Plan 2023-2027 because of the health inequalities impacts of health protection and the need to protect the health of the local population.
Implications
18. There are no specialist implications in this report.
Risk Management
19. There are no risks associated with this report.
Recommendations
The Health and Wellbeing Board are asked to:
i. Receive the report.
Reason: To be assured of the health protection arrangements to protect the local population.
Contact Details
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Report Authors: Wendy Watson Public Health Specialist Practitioner Advanced
Anita Dobson
With contributions from members of the council’s Public Health Protection Team and the York Health Protection Committee
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Chief Officer responsible for the report: Peter Roderick Director of Public Health
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Wards Affected: All
Annexes:
Annex A – Health Protection Annual Report 2024