Some of the poorest and most vulnerable people in Brighton and Hove face a double whammy as the council prepares to make cuts to a key public health team.
The cuts are looming as NHS bosses look to ditch a community-rooted doctors’ surgery, the team running the Wellsbourne Health Centre, in Whitehawk, in favour of a private company from Yorkshire with no local links.
The public health cuts have led the trade union Unison to enter into a dispute with Brighton and Hove City Council as the Labour administration consults staff about the changes.
Yet in February, the council announced extra public health grant funding from the government. And the council is still without a permanent director of public health – a statutory position.
A leading councillor said: “A collective dispute has been raised in response to our consultation on proposed changes to our public health team, which predominantly affects our health trainer service.”
Unison said that the proposed cuts would affect “a group of largely low-paid women, many with additional protected characteristics, delivering a service to some of the most vulnerable people living in the most deprived areas” of Brighton and Hove.
They had been “disproportionately” targeted and the proposal to cut their jobs and the service that they provide was “not equitable or appropriate” in a document containing “major inaccuracies”.
Unison also said: “Issues with the consultation from the very start – both in terms of inaccuracies and the often chaotic way it has been carried out – have caused unacceptable harm to the health and wellbeing of a considerable number of our members and other workers.
“Staff were reassured in October that their jobs were ringfenced and safe but then found out in January that this is not the case.
“We then have months of uncertainty and speculation that have taken a real toll on our members.
“We do not believe this consultation has been carried out in line with council values.
“We have urgent concerns about the health and safety of our members and believe that all of the above has caused the employer to no longer meet their legal duty of care to their employees.
“We have a number of members off sick with stress and anxiety and others working through significant mental and emotional distress.
“Trust and confidence in the organisation have also plummeted on the back of the issues we outline, leaving what was a highly skilled and motivated workforce to feel disregarded and disrespected.”
The union added: “In light of the health trainers’ impact on public health outcomes and health inequalities, it is only appropriate that there should be transparency on these plans with the public and meaningful time for residents to feed back.
“This lack of transparency has put workers at a distinct disadvantage.”
The consultation should be suspended, Unison said, and replaced by a new proposal that addresses the union’s concerns, with more equitable recommendations.
Preferably, though, the union said, the saving should be rethought entirely, given how effective team members had proved at helping people, for example, to stop smoking or manage their weight.
Union bosses fear that any short-term saving will be outweighed by health and care costs in the future.
One public health worker said: “This decision will discourage vulnerable residents from accessing services.
“There are many adults in Brighton and Hove who are neurodivergent and have learning disabilities, physical disabilities and long-term health conditions and mental health issues and/or are insecurely housed.
“The health trainer service sees people who do not or cannot access other services and helps to signpost them on to other organisations who can help them.
“This cut takes the council away from helping people and just doing the bare minimum of statutory requirements.
“I am genuinely worried that valuable free services are being taken away from the residents of Brighton and Hove.”
Another said: “‘It is concerning that the main pool of staff at risk of redundancy in this proposal are health trainers and stop smoking advisers.
“(They) are some of the most experienced long-standing members of staff with decades of knowledge in how to practically improve the physical and mental health and wellbeing of some of our most vulnerable residents.
“Removing such a vital preventative service, which is so well-established in the city to the point that there is a waiting list, is incredibly short-sighted and goes against the entire ethos of public health.
“The fact that health trainers and stop smoking advisers are the lowest-paid staff, often with protected characteristics and lived experience of inequalities, also raises genuine concerns in relation to the Equality Act.”
The Brighton and Hove branch of Unison said: “For months Unison has been raising concerns that the public health consultation is not fit for purpose.
“It has targeted services to the most vulnerable people in the city and deletes the posts of some of the most low-paid and diverse workers in public health.
“We believe it will have serious impacts on health inequalities in the city, particularly in Whitehawk where the health trainer service is the only remaining free physical activity and weight loss service in the area – and taking into account the loss of the community GP surgery.
“We have now lodged a formal dispute on the consultation and asked for it to be suspended and completely rethought.”
Labour councillor Jacob Allen, the council’s cabinet member for adult social care, public health and service transformation, said: “Changes to how we plan to use our public health budget were voted for by councillors earlier in the year during our wider budget-setting process.
“We are currently consulting staff on the impact of these proposals on individual roles and teams.
“We can confirm a collective dispute has been raised in response to our consultation on proposed changes to our public health team which predominantly affects our health trainer service.
“This will be taken through our collective disputes process.
“We are always keen to work with our trade unions and value the vital role they play in supporting staff but logging a collective dispute cannot be used to suspend or stop a consultation from progressing.
“As such, we have no plans to suspend our consultation on these plans, not least because to do so would extend what is already a difficult time for those staff being impacted.
“We know this can be a difficult time for staff impacted by the planned changes and, as well as consulting with colleagues, we have also made everyone affected aware of support available.”
Well, Cllr Allen seems keen to explain that he believes the best use of spending the public health budget is by sacking the GP staff and deciding the people of Whitehawk don’t even deserve to have access to what should be the most basic form of medical assistamr
GPs are not funded via the local authority. We have little say over their operation, staffing, or funding. Instead of funding the health trainer scheme which help a few dozen residents, we have chosen to prioritise funding the family hubs which help thousands of children/parents.
All Labour Councillors in the East of the city have written a joint letter to the ICB chair about Wellsbourne and I have been working closely with Chris Ward MP to push this to NHS England as the appeal body.
We are 100% behind the residents of Whitehawk and Wellsbourne CIC.
But recruiting a director of public health is a council decision, and it looks like the council are failing to do that (unless the article is incorrect)?
In your role what are you doing about it? If it is a statutory post how and why has it been left unfilled for so long?
The article is incorrect. We have an Acting Director of Public Health.
An acting director is a stand in. Please use plain English rather than trying to talk patronising politician speak at us! There was a recruitment last year and a perfectly good winning candidate but, with these cuts looming, the recruitment process was halted. There has since been a costly reorganisation of the top management and we still havd only an acting director.
With all the extra money for public health from the government, it’s odd that it’s being cut at the level that makes a genuine difference to people’s lives.
The idea that the Health Trainer team only help a few dozen people is very wrong – they too support thousands of people a year – maybe check your figures?
A quick google search would tell you that the Health Trainer service is incredibly valued and supports over 2,000 residents a year. Other comments have referenced spending £900 a day on an agency Public Health manager, what is your justification for that in providing any sort of value for money for us as residents?!
Well, Cllr Allen seems keen to explain that he believes the best use of spending the public health budget is by sacking the GP staff and deciding the people of Whitehawk don’t even deserve to have access to what should be the most basic form of medical assistance.
Just for clarity another article made it clear that councillors and MP were supporting Wellsbourne’s appeal. They shouldn’t be blamed for the NHS decision. The public health cuts are to the council health trainer service.
Maybe a consultation should involve the people who are most affected by these proposals or is “consultation” now a euphemism for ” we’ve decided what to cut and are now informing you!” Distinct lack of community engagement and input. Egregious decision to axe the Wellsbourne GP service that has invested a lot of time and energy in this area.
The consultation is with the team being reorganised – so yes those directly impacted. I’m hoping the staff can be redeployed internally so their skills and expertise are still used by the local authority for the good of the city’s residents.
Wellsbourne GP practice was not a council decision, and Labour Councillors including myself have called for a review of the tender process.
But you know how procurement processes work right? So calling for a review of the tender process won’t change the decision. You know the ICB will use the same argument Labour councillors used when you awarded the bus contract to Compass rather than the Big Lemon, despite the latter having better environmental credentials that diesel using compass – the council used the default legal argument about tender processes.
Rather than just write to the ICB, why don’t you write to your Labour government and challenge them to address national legislation which results in poor local decision making. These types of GP tender decisions are made by practices because of budget pressures, and with a Labour government you should be prepared to challenge them on the impact NHS funding constraints and the crisis in general practice have locally. Pushing the blame just to the ICB feels like a cop out to me!
Albeit the ICB should review their decision imo – my point is it doesn’t feel OK for a Labour councillor, when there’s a Labour government to simply deflect blame to the ICB when we all know there are massive funding issues and pressures in the NHS that your party need to sort!
Its my understanding that Chris Ward MP is liaising with the SoS for Health on this – so we aren’t disagreeing on any points
Yet another example of councillors riding roughshod over residents’ and staff views.
And if it’s true that the councillor is without an important statutory post, like a Director of Public Health, who holds the council to account on this – the independent audit office – surely they can’t just leave the post empty? There must be some sort of ombudsman to refer the council to??
The council has an Acting DPH – so the post is filled.
An acting director is a stand in. Please use plain English rather than trying to talk patronising politician speak at us! There was a recruitment last year and a perfectly good winning candidate but, with these cuts looming, the recruitment process was halted. There has since been a costly reorganisation of the top management and we still havd only an acting director.
With all the extra money for public health from the government, it’s odd that it’s being cut at the level that makes a genuine difference to people’s lives.
what a mess
There is an acting director – and someone covering their post at £900 a day – maybe savings could be made there rather than from a hard working team delivering public health benefits instead of this robbing from public health to fund family hubs that should be funded by children’s social care.
This is an absolute disgrace. Once again, the mental health and wellbeing of workers is being completely ignored — how many more times do we have to watch the council fail the very people who keep this city going? This isn’t just negligence; it’s a blatant breach of their duty of care. We will not stand by and let this slide. We do not need another City Clean scandal — the damage from that is still fresh, and yet here we are again. Enough is enough. Start taking responsibility!
A big problem with the consultation is that what was voted through at Budget council was a generic amount of money to go from the staffing of the team overall, and no detail for either politicians or residents to be able to see on what service or services they might lose if the cut went ahead. It is vital that cuts that are voted in through council budgets are open, transparent, and that residents in the city – the stakeholders – get to see them and have time to be heard by their local councillors and influence decision making. To let this go through without challenge would set a dangerous precedent and would have a negative impact on local democracy. The Health Trainer service is long standing, highly successful at engaging some of the hardest to reach people in the city and evidence based. Residents have a right to know that the plan is to cut it, and share their views on that proposal. An opportunity that they were not afforded in February.
And no affordable housing for REAL locals ok benefits
It’s weird that that Cllr Tristan Burdem was outsted when he was in Cllr Jacob Allen’s place and spoke out against these cuts. Cllr Jacob Allen, are you just a yes man to the disastrous actions of the current council? Do you actually know what you are talking about?
Reading through this article left a deeply unsettling impression on me. Working closely enough with the council, I’ve heard persistent and troubling rumours surrounding the current acting Director of Public Health and the disarray that seems to have followed in their wake.
What’s particularly concerning is the reported cost of £900 per day for someone covering their post while they act up as Director. This figure feels especially stark given the council’s current struggle to justify every pound spent. It raises serious questions about priorities—how can such expenditure be justified at a time when vital frontline services like the health trainer programme are facing cuts?
This situation leaves me not only confused but genuinely worried about the council’s direction and the future of public health support for our most vulnerable communities.
Hang on. There’s a stand in director of public health who is spending £900 a day on a stand in for their own job???? AND making cuts to a service that helps some of the deprived communities in Brighton? What the actual F??? This £900 a day person must be pretty awesome if the choice is saving lives and saving this one job. But I doubt it. Hopefully someone has checked. I hope I’m wrong
According to o the faculty of pubic health, “Rather than focussing on the health of the individual, public health works to protect and improve the health of communities and populations at local, regional, national, and global level. Public health is a shared responsibility requiring collective action.”
How is cutting a community health service for the vulnerable, staffed by a diverse group of people even being considered????
Labour can’t blame the ICB for the closure of the GP surgery. They are the ones that dish out the money!
Labour seem to be failing all round at protecting the vulnerable in Brighton
Reading through this article left a deeply unsettling impression on me. Working closely enough with the council, I’ve heard persistent and troubling rumours surrounding the current acting Director of Public Health and the disarray that seems to have followed in their wake.
What’s particularly concerning is the reported cost of £900 per day for someone covering their post while they act up as Director. This figure feels especially stark given the council’s current struggle to justify every pound spent. It raises serious questions about priorities—how can such expenditure be justified at a time when vital frontline services like the health trainer programme are facing cuts?
This situation leaves me not only confused but genuinely worried about the council’s direction and the future of public health support for our most vulnerable communities.