Press release: State of the nation’s health revealed in landmark report from PHE

The ‘Health Profile for England’ report is the first time PHE has used its wealth of population health data to give an overall picture of the health of England.

People are living longer than ever – life expectancy in England has now reached 79.5 years for males and 83.1 years for females. However, much of the extra time is spent in poor health.

A major theme of the ‘Health Profile for England’ report is health inequalities; we are simultaneously publishing a focused report examining health inequalities between different population groups. In the richest areas, people enjoy nearly 20 more years in good health than people in the poorest areas.

The ‘Health Profile for England’ report covers life expectancy, major causes of death, morbidity trends, European comparisons, inequality in health, social determinants of health and current health protection issues.

Some of the report’s more notable findings include:

  • life expectancy has increased more than years in good health and therefore the number of years lived in poor health has also increased
  • diabetes makes the top 10 causes of ill-health and disability (morbidity) for the first time
  • the 2 biggest risk factors behind levels of ill health are excess weight and high blood sugar
  • lower back and neck pain are the biggest causes of ill health
  • while deaths from heart disease and stroke have halved since 2001, it’s still the biggest killer of men
  • the biggest killers for women are Alzheimer’s disease and dementia

‘Health Profile for England’ has been created with policymakers, both national and local, in mind. PHE wants them to use the report as a shared reference point and to think about the broader impact of their policies on health. The report also allows local policymakers to see how they compare with the national picture.

Duncan Selbie, Chief Executive of PHE said:

Good public health is not defined by health policy alone. Our health profiles show a high-quality education, a well-designed and warm home, a good job and a community to belong to are just as important.

The more we consider the impact of all policies on population health, the sooner we can focus on preventing poor health instead of only dealing with its consequences, especially for those from the most deprived communities.

  1. Public Health England exists to protect and improve the nation’s health and wellbeing, and reduce health inequalities. It does this through world-class science, knowledge and intelligence, advocacy, partnerships and the delivery of specialist public health services. PHE is an operationally autonomous executive agency of the Department of Health. Follow us on Twitter: @PHE_uk and Facebook: www.facebook.com/PublicHealthEngland.
  2. The ‘Health Profile for England’ and ‘Public Health Outcomes Framework: Health Equity Report, Focus on ethnicity’ are available on PHE’s website.
  3. The ‘Health Profile for England’ report’s 7 chapters are:
    • life expectancy and healthy life expectancy
    • major causes of death and how they have changed
    • trends in morbidity and behavioural risk factors
    • European comparisons
    • inequality in health
    • social determinants of health
    • current and emerging health protection issues
  4. The ‘Public Health Outcomes Framework: Health Equity Report, Focus on ethnicity’ was also published today. It provides analysis and commentary on how different ethnicities compare on 18 indicators and determinants of health.
  5. The indicators have been chosen by PHE’s Health Equity Board, to help it monitor how PHE performs against its duty to reduce health inequalities and ensure it considers the needs of all individuals in day to day work in shaping policy and delivering services.

Contact:



Press release: UK Government urges Welsh businesses to export

In 2016 there were more than 3,800 businesses exporting in Wales with an annual combined value of £12.4bn exports. Now, Ministers are urging other business to take up the support on offer including financial incentives and online matching services.

To mark the anniversary Secretary of State for Wales Alun Cairns has announced that he will be writing to 26,000 Welsh businesses that have been identified as potential exporters and sending them a copy of a dedicated exporting guide for Welsh businesses.

The Wales Export Guide, sets out the full range of support available to Welsh businesses from the UK Government and contains inspiring stories of companies based in Wales that are successfully exporting. Alun Cairns hopes that businesses will recognise the huge potential available to help them invest and grow.

Secretary of State for Wales Alun Cairns said:

I want Welsh businesses to get out into the wider world, to trade and do business all around the globe. That is why we are sharing the advice, guidance and support available from the UK Government, in particular from the Department for International Trade, for businesses in our Wales Export Guide. We want to help them to build their brand abroad as we continue to increase UK exports and encourage inward investment.

DIT has helped to secure billions of pounds in export opportunities, and since its creation in July 2016, the department has also supported;

  • a trade mission to India which resulted in £1.2 billion worth of business deals
  • the largest ever healthcare trade mission to China which saw British organisations sign deals worth more than £250 million
  • UK architecture firms to secure a contract worth tens of millions of pounds in UAE

DIT has also set up ten working groups across 15 countries to strengthen trade and commercial ties with key trading partners around the world.

International Trade Minister, Greg Hands said:

We are already a great trading nation, but as an international economic department we now want to encourage businesses to look at whether there could be a global market for their goods and services.

By designing our own trade policy in Britain’s national interest, after we leave the EU, we will be able to take advantage of growing markets around the world and further boost our export successes.

Through great.gov.uk, the department gives UK businesses access to millions of pounds’ worth of potential overseas business, helping them start or increase exporting.

There’s been more than 2.4 million visits to great.gov.uk and more than 3,300 UK businesses have already registered on the government’s ‘Find a Buyer’ service to match UK businesses to worldwide demand.

Exporting support for Wales

DIT hosted the inaugural Wales Export Business Summit where more than 80 businesses came together to access advice and guidance from entrepreneurs, international business owners and export champions. The summit helped to connect firms starting out on their exporting journey with the expertise they need.

In the last year, DIT has supported almost 1,200 companies in Wales by helping them attend overseas trade shows, carry out crucial market research and develop international relationships.

One Welsh manufacturer that has benefited from government support is Pontypool-based company Flamgard Calidair. Through UK Export Finance, which operates as part of DIT, Flamgard secured a contract to provide specialist fire and shut off dampers to the Chernobyl site. The €1.5bn multinational engineering project, managed by international contractor Novarka, will be installed in late 2017. ENDS

Notes to editors

  • Contact the DIT Media and Digital Team on 020 215 2000
  • Follow us: @tradegovuk gov.uk/dit


Press release: Jobs boost for Welsh engineering sector

Welsh Secretary Alun Cairns: CAF rail investment a ‘strong endorsement’ of Wales’ skills base and business environment.

Spanish train manufacturer Construcciones y Auxiliar de Ferrocarriles (CAF) has today (13 July) announced plans to create 300 jobs at a new factory at the former Llanwern steelworks site in Newport where it will build trains and trams for the UK network.

The company has previously supplied trains to the UK from its factories in Spain and looked at more than 100 locations throughout the UK before choosing its Newport location due to is transport links and access to a pool of highly skilled workers.

Secretary of State for Wales Alun Cairns said:

The announcement of this new manufacturing facility is fantastic news for Newport and will be welcomed by everyone who wants to see a thriving Welsh manufacturing sector. It means up to 300 new skilled jobs created at the plant, the potential for thousands of jobs secured in the supply chain and the start of a new chapter for this important manufacturing site in south Wales.

We must continue to be ambitious for Wales, and to make this country an attractive destination for investors. CAF is the latest major company to invest in Wales and is yet another strong endorsement of the skills-base and the business environment we are cultivating here. We are very much open for business and I look forward to seeing the new facility taking shape over the coming years.

Richard Garner, CAF’s UK Director said:

CAF is responding to demands made by its customers who are asking for British trains, manufactured by British workers using British based suppliers.

The new factory will be over 46,000 square metres and will employ 200 people when it opens in the autumn of 2018, rising to 300 in 2019. The facility will enable the build of a range of different trains, including trams, suburban and metro trains and high speed trains. CAF plans to start recruiting people to work at the factory in spring 2018 and will be offering training and apprenticeship schemes from autumn 2018.



Press release: Firms urged to apply for groundbreaking cyber startup scheme

  • Programme will be an integral part of developing UK cyber security capability
  • UK cyber security sector is now worth more than £22bn

A groundbreaking initiative bringing together GCHQ and industry expertise to develop new cyber security technology is to be extended.

Cutting-edge cyber security entrepreneurs and start-up firms are now being invited to apply to join the second programme in the GCHQ Cyber Accelerator which will be extended from three to nine months.

The expanded programme will give start-ups more time with the world-class personnel and technological expertise of staff from across GCHQ, including the National Cyber Security Centre, enabling them to expand their capability, improve their ideas, and devise cutting-edge products.

The programme will be delivered by Wayra UK, part of Telefónica, and the selected startups will receive benefits to help them scale all aspects of their businesses, including office space, mentoring and contact with an extensive investor network.

The facility will specifically help new firms turn their ideas into commercial products and services and contribute to the booming UK cyber security sector which grew from £17.6 billion in 2014 to almost £22 billion in 2015.

The accelerator programme is a collaboration between the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS), GCHQ, the NCSC, and Wayra UK.

Minister for Digital Matt Hancock said:

We are working hard to make Britain the best place to start and grow a digital business and the safest place to be online.

The GCHQ Cyber Accelerator is a vital part of this work and has already helped some of the most innovative cyber security startups develop cutting-edge new products and services.

I’m pleased to announce the programme is being extended and encourage the nation’s talented entrepreneurs to apply.

The accelerator is an important element of the Cheltenham Innovation Centre and a key commitment in the Government’s five-year, £1.9 billion National Cyber Security Strategy which aims to defend the UK in cyberspace, deter our adversaries and develop our cyber security skills and capabilities. DCMS is also planning to launch a second innovation centre – in London – at the end of the year.

The facility brings together experts in this field from government, academia and industry, and is a partnership which is vital to achieving the government’s aim of making the UK the best place to start and grow a modern digital business.

Earlier this year, seven start-ups graduated from the accelerator’s first programme and to date they have collectively raised more than £2.7m in investment, including follow-on contracts with major companies such as Cisco.

The firms which took part were CounterCraft, CyberOwl, CyberSmart, Elemendar, Spherical Defence, StatusToday and Verimuchme.

Chris Ensor, NCSC Deputy Director of Cyber Skills and Growth, said:

Cyber Accelerator represents a massive opportunity to collaborate with cutting edge companies to drive forward the government’s ambitious programme of innovation that is helping to protect the UK from evolving cyber threats.

Gary Stewart, Director of Wayra UK, said:

Improving cyber security is one of the most important challenges that we face, whether as large corporates, SMEs or individual citizens. We are eager to accelerate the growth of the next generation of cybersecurity startups, in partnership with GCHQ, DCMS and our colleagues at Telefónica. The goal is that the start-ups will scale up and we will all be more secure online.

Notes to editors

Wayra UK will deliver the accelerator programme.

Start-ups can apply via wayra.co.uk/gchq today. The closing date for entries is 9 August 2017. Successful start-ups will begin work in the accelerator in October 2017.

The accelerator programme will help start-ups boost and scale initial sales and business development with relevant partners and secure follow-on third-party investment. Start-ups will be given a grant by Wayra UK as well as a physical space to work in. Members will also have the opportunity to learn first-hand about cyber security best practices and gain Cyber Essentials accreditation.

The programme will include insights to Government procurement processes, IP management, export controls and information assurance architecture. There will be opportunities to pitch products and services to Government departments and GCHQ will also offer access to its national and international commercial partners across the cyber security sector.



Speech: “It’s clear that our message simply isn’t getting through to the Government of the DRC. The killings have continued, the horror has continued.”

Statement by Stephen Hickey, Political Counsellor at the Permanent Mission of the United Kingdom to the United Nations, at the Security Council briefing on the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

Thank you Mr President.

I wouldn’t normally take the floor ahead of consultations, but as both Under-Secretary-General Lacroix and the Ambassador of France have expressed so clearly, these simply aren’t normal times for the people of the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

Indeed, for many people in the Kasai region these are the darkest moments of their lives.

The reports emanating from this region should send a shiver down each and every spine in this room. They are reports that bear all the hallmarks of the very worst of humanity; mass killings, beheadings, mass graves, millions displaced.

Sadly, as highlighted by the Secretary-General’s Advisor on Genocide, the government’s own security forces are responsible for much of this death and destruction in certain areas of the Kasai provinces. Nearly a hundred children have been maimed and killed by their own government’s forces and children have been sexually abused by government forces.

This represents a wider, worrying trend – the Secretary-General reports that 60% of 1,444 human rights violations and abuses recorded in the DRC over the past 3 months were committed by government forces – the same government that bears the primary responsibility to protect its citizens.

When faced with hell, people should be able to look to their government in hope. For the people of the Kasai, they do so only in fear.

This does not mean that the militia operating in these areas are innocent. Not by any stretch of the imagination. As we heard from USG Lacroix, they too are responsible for rape, killing, and high levels of child recruitment.

It is clear that the situation in the DRC compels us all to take a stand. That’s why we welcome the international investigation mandated by the Human Rights Council last month. It must start as soon as possible and be conducted to international standards of independence and transparency. We urge the Government to cooperate fully with this investigation; those responsible for these horrific crimes must be held to account.

Sadly, Mr President, the situation in the Kasai is by no means an isolated example in the DRC. There is also renewed violence in the east of the country, much of which has a worrying ethnic dimension. Such violence, in different areas of DRC, only further reinforces our belief that political uncertainty and instability in Kinshasa is fuelling violent uncertainty and violent instability across the country. And this is now presenting a serious threat to regional stability.

We all know what needs to happen, Mr President, and the Ambassador of France set this out very clearly. The DRC Government knows what it needs to do; stop the violence; ensure accountability for the violations and abuses; implement the 31 December Agreement in full. As set out in this Agreement, elections should be held in six months. We simply must see progress that gives the Congolese people and the world the confidence that this will be realised. This is the issue that is fundamentally increasing frustration and tensions in the country.

To deliver on this, the Electoral Commission must release an electoral timetable setting a date for elections, in line with the 31st December Agreement and agree a budget, so that vital international funds can be released. Let me take the opportunity to welcome progress in electoral registration and the positive role played by MONUSCO in support of this. But this progress must continue – insecurity cannot be used as an excuse for further delay.

In truth, Mr President, none of this new. We’ve known what needs to happen for some time. It’s clear that our message simply isn’t getting through to the Government of the DRC. The killings have continued, the horror has continued. What has failed to continue is genuine implementation of the 31st December Agreement that laid the path toward elections. So it’s incumbent on all of us in this Council to do more.

With the eyes of the world looking on us today in open session, I ask all Council members to support a clear, unequivocal message: stop the violence; hold those responsible for violations and abuses to account; and implement the 31st of December Agreement in full without delay.

Thank you.