According to the Labour Party website the Labour Party have achieved the following in their time in power:

Why Labour?

Labour understands that good healthcare isn’t just about helping people when they get ill – it’s about helping people to stay healthy in the first place. That’s why we launched the Change4Life campaign, encouraging children and families to stay healthy by eating better and exercising more. We are providing people with advice and support to make healthy choices, from early pregnancy through to old age, and making the environment healthier for everyone with smokefree legislation. And we are investing in prevention and early detection, with more vaccinations, expanded screening programmes and more screening in GPs’ surgeries.

Key achievements:

* The UK is now smokefree, with no smoking in almost all enclosed public places and workplaces, and the legal age for buying tobacco has been raised from 16 to 18. The NHS has supported hundreds of thousands of smokers to quit.
* Sure Start Children’s Centres in every community provide health advice and support to young children and their parents to tackle problems such as poor nutrition, low birth weight and parents smoking.
* School lunches are healthier thanks to strict controls over the amount of deep fried food sold in schools and a ban on the sale of fizzy drinks, crisps and confectionary in schools.
* Over the last five years £1.5 billion has been invested in school sports, rising to £2.4 billion by 2011. 86 per cent of pupils now do two or more hours of high quality school sport and PE a week.
* Everyone aged 65 and over is entitled to a free flu vaccine every year, and over 60s are entitled to free sight tests.
* From this school year, all 12 and 13 year old girls are being offered a new vaccination against cervical cancer, with a catch-up programme to cover girls aged 13-18, which will save 400 lives per year.

New Labour, your Britain:

* Labour has launched Change4Life, a society-wide movement that aims to prevent people from becoming overweight by encouraging them to eat better and stay active.
* Change4Life includes the “Be Active, Be Healthy” plan, bringing together the NHS, voluntary groups, and private organisations. It aims to get people swimming, cycling, walking and dancing, and to provide more support, more encouragement and more opportunities across communities to get people active.
* All mums-to-be are now entitled to the Health in Pregnancy Grant, a tax-free payment of £190 from the 25th week of pregnancy, along with advice from a health professional.
* The Family Nurse Partnership Programme, which provides intensive support from highly trained nurses for the most vulnerable first-time mothers, will be expanded from 30 to 70 sites by 2011, with a view to rolling out this support for the most vulnerable first-time young mothers across England over the next decade.
* Labour is rolling out a national programme of vascular checks for everyone aged between 40 and 74, to prevent at least 9,500 heart attacks and strokes every year and save 2,000 lives.
* By the end of 2010, we will have extended the ages at which adults are screened so that an additional 500,000 women will be screened for breast cancer and 2 million men and women will be screened for bowel cancer.
* By 2011, 3,600 more new psychological therapists will have treated 900,000 more people with depression and anxiety, improving their quality of life and reducing the numbers on sick pay and benefits.
* From 2011, to help tackle child obesity, every 11 to 14-year-old will be given hands-on cooking lessons, making cheap, healthy dishes from fresh ingredients.
* Labour is taking action to discourage young people from smoking, by removing the display of tobacco products at the point of sale, and preventing underage access to cigarette vending machines.
* Labour is taking action to reduce alcohol-related harm, by introducing a new mandatory code of practice to target irresponsible retailers, and more resources to tackle underage sales and confiscate alcohol from under 18s.

Labour Party Public Health Policy :http://www.labour.org.uk/public-health

I would be interested to hear both positive and negative views on Labour’s Public Health policies in the comments below?