Better Health For All

Over the summer, FPH’s Brexit Project Group started work on the third of our Brexit policy ‘calls’ – to secure health focused post-Brexit trade agreements. We met with twenty key stakeholders from across the wider health community, legal experts, civil servants and the business community, including the Brexit Health Alliance, Cancer Research UK and Department for International Trade. We wanted to understand their priorities and aspirations for the public’s health as the Government develops the UK’s post-Brexit trade policy.

We’ve summarised those conversations into a short discussion paper that we hope will continue the discourse around the role the UK’s post-Brexit trade policy can play in delivering a healthier society.

What we’ve been hearing

Six key themes emerged from these conversations and here’s a snapshot of what they are:

1. A ‘seat at the table’: Stakeholders feel that a formalised and transparent engagement process is vital in providing trade negotiators with the specialist expertise they need. Public health needs to have a ‘seat at the table’ in shaping trade policy.
2. The right to health: We heard that respect for the right to health should form the bedrock of our future trade policy. The UK has an opportunity to show global leadership by embedding the right to health as an explicit objective of the UK’s post-Brexit trade agreements.
3. The right to regulate: Stakeholders view the development of an independent trade policy as an opportunity for the Government to reinforce the UK’s right to regulate in the public interest – for example, on environmental and food hygiene and safety standards and on medicines.
4. A commitment to ‘Do No Harm’: The Government has made an unequivocal “guarantee of equivalent or higher standards of health protection and health improvement when we have left the EU”. Stakeholders are keen to ensure the Government is true to its word.
5. A commitment to ‘Do Better’: The UK remains a world leader in public health. Stakeholders emphasised the opportunities provided by Brexit to move faster across a range of policies from minimum unit pricing to advertising health-harming food and drinks.
6. The NHS should be protected: Stakeholders welcome the Government’s signal that the NHS and public services will not be traded away. However, concern was raised that several aspects of traded healthcare should be ‘off-limits’.

How you can help us develop this vitally important piece of work?

• Please have a read of the discussion paper and share your thoughts on whether these themes cover the key priorities for health and trade and if so, why do you feel they are important? Is anything missing? Our discussion paper sets out a small number of further questions that we’re keen to explore with you too.
• If you’re interested in this topic and an expert in the field, attend our workshop on 17 October where we’ll be developing our thinking.
• Join our ‘healthy trade’ coalition of stakeholders and health organisations who are uniting in support of our forthcoming ‘healthy trade blueprint’.
• If you’re an FPH member and would like to help us shape our thinking, you can also join our Brexit ‘sounding board’ of members.

What are the next steps?

The workshop will help to inform our response to the Department of International Trade consultation at the end of October. Then, at the beginning of next year, FPH will be setting out a set of principles for ‘healthy’ trade agreements that we will encourage the Government’s trade negotiators to support as they agree future trade deals with the EU and the rest of the world.

Written by Rhosyn Harris, Specialty Registrar, FPH Brexit Project Group. You can follow Rhosyn on Twitter @RhosynHarris.

For further details on any of the above, please contact Mark Weiss, Senior Policy Officer at FPH, via email: markweiss@fph.org.uk.