Written answers
Tuesday, 16 January 2018
Department of Health
Health Strategies
Billy Kelleher (Cork North Central, Fianna Fail)
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818. To ask the Minister for Health the action taken for each of the 21 priority actions due to commence in the first year of the obesity policy and action plan 2016 to 2025, in tabular form. [54931/17]
Catherine Byrne (Dublin South Central, Fine Gael)
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‘A Healthy Weight for Ireland’, the national Obesity Policy and Action Plan (OPAP), was launched in September 2016 under the auspices of the Healthy Ireland agenda. The OPAP covers a ten year period up to 2025 and aims to reverse obesity trends, prevent health complications and reduce the overall burden for individuals, families, the health system, and the wider society and economy.
Every sector of our society has a role in reducing the burden of obesity. The OPAP clearly acknowledges this.
The OPAP prescribed Ten Steps Forward that would be taken to prevent overweight and obesity. These contain a number of actions, some of which have been identified for early implementation. A summary of progress with implementation of the Ten Steps Forward is outlined in the following table:
| No. | Action | Progress |
|---|---|---|
| 1. | Embed multi-sectoral actions on obesity prevention with the support of government departments and public sector agencies. | My Department has established an Obesity Policy Implementation Oversight Group. The national Obesity Policy Implementation Oversight Group (OPIOG) - under the Chair of my Department - is comprised of representatives from the following Departments and Agencies: Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine; Department of Children and Youth Affairs; Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection; Department of Education and Skills; Department of Housing, Planning and Local Government; University College Cork; the Food Safety Authority of Ireland; the Health Service Executive (HSE) - including the National Clinical Lead for Obesity; and Safefood. I am pleased to advise the Deputy that the OPIOG held its inaugural meeting on the 19th of October last with further meetings to be arranged at agreed intervals for the purposes of providing oversight to the implementation of the national Obesity Policy and Action Plan (OPAP). The OPIOG will identify processes for engaging with networks of stakeholders. It will elaborate on this aspect of its functions over the course of its work to implement the OPAP that runs up to 2025. The Minister for Finance has also announced in Budget 2018 the introduction of a sugar tax, at a rate of 30 cent per litre on drinks with over eight grams of sugar per 100 millilitres, along with a reduced rate of 20 cent per litre on drinks with between five and eight grams of sugar per 100 millilitres. |
| 2. | Regulate for a healthier environment | The development of legislation for calorie posting to support people to make healthy choices is underway by the Department. Currently, a behaviour study on how best to make the posting of calories meaningful to customers and more likely to impact on their behaviours is being carried out by the ESRI. In addition, actions in this area are being progressed through engagement with other Government Departments to support the work of stakeholders involved in planning and developing the built environment. |
| 3. | Secure appropriate support from the commercial sector to play its part in obesity prevention. | At its inaugural meeting, the OPOIG agreed to establish two sub-groups for Reformulation and Healthy Eating. Further sub-groups will be established as required. Both sub-groups have agreed to meet and agree their draft Terms of Reference, which in the interim, remain under active consideration in the Department. Note that one of the priority actions under Step 3 of the OPAP was to ‘Establish a forum for meaningful engagement with industry on best practice initiatives towards a healthy food environment’. It is intended to progress this action under the auspices of the OPIOG in 2018. The Department is planning to launch a Code of Practice for Non-Broadcast Media Advertising and Marketing of Food and Non-Alcoholic Beverages, including Sponsorship and Retail Product Placement in the coming weeks. |
| 4. | Implement a strategic and sustained communications strategy that empowers individuals, communities and service providers to become obesity aware and equipped to change, with a particular focus on families with children in the early years. | I recently launched a new child obesity campaign under the auspices of Health Ireland. It's called the START campaign and it aims to inspire, empower and support parents to start building and persist with healthy lifestyle habits in the family to prevent childhood obesity. The first phase of the campaign features advertising on TV, radio, video on demand, outdoor and digital platforms. This will be supported by the Healthy Ireland 2018 campaign. It seeks to encourage people to make positive choices to improve their physical and mental health, while also providing support and information to help people make those healthier choices. |
| 5. | The Department of Health, through Healthy Ireland, will provide leadership, engage and co-ordinate multi-sectoral action and implement best practice in the governance of the Obesity Policy and Action Plan. | As referred to at step 1 above, the establishment of an Obesity Policy Implementation Oversight Group is well advanced. New Healthy Eating Guidelines, Food Pyramid and supporting resources have already been published, disseminated and communicated in 2017, including dissemination of the new Guidelines to all primary and post-primary schools. Work has also commenced on developing Healthy Eating Guidelines for the 1-5 year old age group. As a first step in this work, the Scientific Committee of the Food Safety Authority of Ireland (FSAI) are currently developing scientific recommendations for food based dietary guidelines for 1 to 5 year olds. Health and Wellbeing, DOH will then lead out on the development of food based Healthy Eating Guidelines for this age group. New Nutrition Standards for schools, with an initial focus on school meal programmes funded by the Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection, have also been developed. These Nutrition Standards were published in September 2017. The Standards were developed by the Department of Health with the assistance of safefood and the Health Service Executive, in cooperation with the members of the School Meals Programme in the Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection and the Department of Education and Skills. |
| 6. | Mobilise the health services to better prevent and address overweight and obesity through effective community-based health promotion programmes, training and skills development and through enhanced systems for detection and referrals of overweight and obese patients at primary care level. | A Healthy Eating, Active Living Programme has been established as a Policy Priority Programme within the HSE and a three-year plan for the programme has been finalised. The GP contract for the provision of free care to children under 6 years, already provides that the medical practitioner shall take an active approach toward promoting health and preventing disease through the provision of periodic assessments to child patients. The HSE is also implementing a Breastfeeding Action Plan and a new Making Every Contact Count brief intervention framework was launched earlier this year by the HSE which aims to capitalise on the opportunities that occur every day within the health service to support people to make healthy lifestyle choices. |
| 7. | Develop a service model for specialist care for children and adults. | The HSE National Clinical Lead for Obesity was recently appointed. This appointment will be important in further advancing the implementation of many of the recommendations in the OPAP including the development of a national integrated service model for the health and social care of overweight and obese people and for developing quality assurance guidance for obesity services. |
| 8. | Acknowledge the key role of physical activity in the prevention of overweight and obesity. | 'Get Ireland Active! The National Physical Activity Plan for Ireland' (NPAP) is one of the key developments arising from Healthy Ireland, and implementation of that Plan is well underway in collaboration with the Department of Transport, Tourism and Sport and a range of other stakeholders. This will be supported by the Healthy Ireland 2018 campaign. It seeks to encourage people to make positive choices to improve their physical and mental health, while also providing support and information to help people make those healthier choices. |
| 9. | Allocate resources according to need, in particular to those population groups most in need of support in the prevention and management of obesity, with particular emphasis on families and children during the first 1,000 days of life. | The implementation of the Healthy Eating and Active Living Plan within the HSE will begin to address this action area, with a particular focus on supporting parents and families. |
| 10. | Develop a multi-annual research programme that is closely allied to policy actions, invest in surveillance and evaluate progress on an annual basis. | The establishment of the national oversight structure referred to earlier will foster developments under this step of the OPAP. |
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