The interactive ‘return on investment’ tools show how much local authorities can benefit from the win-win situation of improving people’s health whilst also saving money.

The tools help local authorities to judge the health and economic gains that can be created by placing greater focus on ‘prevention rather than cure’. They help councils to choose information and data relevant for the people living in their area, and see what benefits and savings different combinations of public health activities can produce. 

Designed to support health investment decisions, the tools illustrate what benefits can be gained from different approaches over the short, medium and long-term. NICE has also set up online training and workshops to help people get the most out of the tools.

Professor Mike Kelly, Director of the Centre for Public Health at NICE said: “Prevention is better, and also cheaper, than cure. Action to prevent ill-health improves and saves lives, as well as money.  For example, preventing a 1% increase in the number of people who are overweight or obese could save the NHS and local authorities around £97 million per year.  So, in this difficult economic climate, the huge potential of public health programmes to save local authorities money makes it an obvious win-win opportunity. 

“These new return on investment tools aim to make it easier for commissioners, policy makers and other staff in local authorities and the NHS to choose which public health actions are most effective for improving health of their communities while also providing the best value for money.  As a nation, we must tackle public health issues: the estimated overall costs to society of alcohol problems alone amount to £20 billion every year in cash-terms in England.  Action to tackle issues like alcohol abuse, physical inactivity and smoking costs relatively little compared with the savings in the medium to longer-term.”

Dr Justin Varney, Consultant in Public Health Medicine Adults at Public Health England, said: “PHE welcomes the new Physical Activity Return on Investment Tool produced by NICE. The tool will be invaluable to local authorities who wish to commission cost-effective services and interventions that help to get more people more active more often.

“Leading a healthy lifestyle, which includes being physically active for more than 150 minutes a week, will help to improve your mental wellbeing and reduce your risk of developing heart disease, some cancers and type 2 diabetes.”

NICE published a tool on tackling smoking in 2013, which has helped local authorities to plan how to use their resources for the best health and financial outcomes.   

Commenting on how this NICE tool has helped her council, Dr Marion Gibbon, Consultant in Public Health and consultant lead for tobacco at Kent County Council, said: “In Kent we have used the NICE return on investment tool for tobacco in our bid for increasing the resource allocation to support the tobacco control programme.

It was extremely helpful to be able to show some of the savings and health gain that could be achieved through the provision of extra resources.”

NICE is publishing an updated version of the smoking tool in late June.

Professor Kelly added: “Funding public health programmes and actions now can avoid the risk of storing up costly problems for the future.  Tackling smoking is one of the most cost-effective of all preventive strategies.  An example analysis for one council found that each £1 invested in a range of smoking cessation interventions will lead to a return of £2.82 after 10 years.  Smoking currently costs the NHS and businesses in that locality over £10million each year. The new interactive tools are a quick and easy way to support for councillors and local government in improving the health and wellbeing of local people – and help them balance the books at the same time.”  

Ends

For more information call Dr Tonya Gillis at the NICE press office on 0845 003 7782 or out of hours on 07775 583 813.

Notes to Editors

About the return on investment tools

1. The return on investment tools are part of a suite of advice which NICE is producing to provide support to local government.  This area of work aims to help councillors and local authority staff find out which public health actions are most effective in improving the health of people in their area, while also providing the best value for money.
2. Each tool is accompanied by a user guide and a technical report. Users select a geographical region, local authority or Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) area which has been pre-populated with local-level population data and prevalence of different levels of physical activity, alcohol use or estimated populations of smoking and ex-smoking populations based on up-to-date statistics. This population composition is used to model the impact of interventions to reduce levels of physical inactivity, alcohol use or smoking on relevant endpoints, taking into account short-, medium- and long-term events.
3. The NICE return on investment tools have been developed in collaboration with Brunel University, LeLan Solutions and Matrix Knowledge.