Save the HIA Gateway Campaign - we need your support - 8th UPDATED SUPPORTER LIST- 2nd May 2011

The HIA Gateway which has been funded by the English/UK Department of Health for the last 7-8 years and for those that don't know it can be found at www.hiagateway.org.uk is under threat. Its likely that the pages will remain but there will be no one to update them and as we all know resources that aren't updated increasingly lose their relevance except as a historical archive. Worse, they then tend to disappear as visitors numbers to the web pages declines.

We nearly lost it a few years back when the Health Development Agency was merged into the national Institute of Clinical Excellence.

Support the Campaign by sending an email with your name, organisation and the value of the HIA gateway to savehiagateway (a) gmail.com. You can also add your support in the comments. You can also do both!

We will be sending the following letter with the names of supporters to key people in the UK Government, Department if Health and key professional health associations.

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Click here to check out the reasons why people want the HIA Gateway to be saved.


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OPEN LETTER THAT WILL BE SENT TO KEY INFLUENCERS

Rt Hon Andrew Lansley CBE MP (Secretary of State for Health)
Anne Milton MP (Parliamentary Under Secretary for Public Health)
Rt Hon Eric Pickles MP (Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government)
Ed Milliband MP (Leader of the Opposition)
John Healey MP (Shadow Secretary of State for Health)
Diane Abbott MP (Shadow Public Health Minister)
Debbie Abrahams MP (MP for Oldham East and Saddleworth)

Una O’Brien (Permanent Secretary, Department of Health)
Dame Sally Davies (Chief Medical Officer, interim, Department of Health)
Tim Baxter (Head of Public Health Development, Department of Health)
Sunjai Gupta OBE (Deputy Director, Head of Public Health Strategy and Social Marketing, Department of Health, currently overseeing the HIA Gateway)
Mike Kelly (Public Health Excellence Centre Director, National Institute of Clinical Excellence)

Rosemary Marr (Director for Health Improvement, Department of Health)

David Harper (Deputy Chief Medical Officer, Department of Health)

Anita Marsland (Executive Officer, PH England)

Brian Ferguson (Chair, Association of Public Health Observatories)

Alison Patey (Network Director, Association of Public Health Observatories)

David Prout (Director General Localism Group, Department for Communities and Local Government)
Andrew Campbell (Director, Strategy and Programme Team, Department for Communities and Local Government)

Dr Clare Gerada (Chair of The Royal College of General Practitioners)
Professor Lindsey Davies CBE (President of The Faculty of Public Health)
Richard Parish (Chief Executive, Royal Society for Public Health)

Paul Lincoln OBE (Chief Executive of the National Heart Forum)
Modi Mwatsama (International Programme Manager, National Heart Forum)

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LETTER SENT : 3rd Feb'2011
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Dear Sir/Madam,

CONTINUED FUNDING FOR THE HEALTH IMPACT ASSESSMENT GATEWAY: AN INTERNATIONAL RESOURCE AND BEACON OF GOOD PRACTICE

www.hiagateway.org.uk

http://www.apho.org.uk/default.aspx?QN=P_HIA

The UK is an internationally-recognised leader in the theory and practice of health impact assessment (HIA).

HIA is seen by many institutions internationally as an important approach to ensuring Healthy Public Policy and Healthy Development including the World Bank and International Monetary Fund (which last year published a guide on HIA) as well as the World Health Organization (which has a web portal on HIA).

HIA is now practiced across the globe from North America (Canada and very strongly in recent years in the USA), South America (Brazil), across Europe (the devolved nations, Ireland, Spain, Germany, Sweden, Switzerland, etc.), Africa ( in particular as part of development bank lending conditions), South East Asia (Thailand, Laos, Vietnam, Mongolia and Japan) as well as Australia and New Zealand.

In England, as part of regulatory assessment, it is one of the mandatory Specific Impact Tests for all new policies, plans and programmes across Government. At local level it is widely seen as good practice and many local authorities and primary care trusts/ health boards have embedded HIA into their local policy and development planning processes. It is also an important component of Strategic Environmental Assessment and Sustainability Appraisal.

As with all forms of IA, HIA is fundamentally about spending a small amount of money now to avoid major expenditure at a later date on rectifying problems that could have been foreseen and hence very much needed in these economically difficult times.

We, the undersigned, are writing to make a case for the continued funding of the HIA Gateway as a cost-effective use of public money to protect and improve local community health and wellbeing. The funding will help maintain a national and international public health resource through keeping an up-to-date set of electronic HIA resources, contact lists and news and to have a national and international point of contact for questions about English/UK HIA.

The cost of maintaining this resource is dwarfed by the added value that this resource has delivered and will continue to deliver in the future in England and the UK not to mention the international kudos that this resource provides to the Department of Health.

We therefore urge the Department of Health and the Government to ensure that the funding for the HIA Gateway is maintained and protected over the life of this and future parliaments.

We would also welcome the opportunity to have a meeting to discuss the value and future of the HIA Gateway.

Yours sincerely,


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UPDATED SUPPORTERS LIST - 25th Mar' 2011
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UK (50)

Salim Vohra (Institute of Occupational Medicine)

Andy Pennington (University of Liverpool)

Ben Cave (Ben Cave Associates)

Jenny Mindell (University College London)

Mary Mahoney (University of Gloucestershire)

Debbie Fox (University of Liverpool)

Alex Scott-Samuel (University of Liverpool)

Anthea Cooke (Inukshuk Consultancy)

Eva Elliott (Cardiff Institute of Society and Health)

John Kemm, (JK Public Health)

Sue Wright (West Midlands Public Health Observatory)

Marcus Chilaka (University of Salford)

Gifty Amo-Danso (Institute of Occupational Medicine)

Ifeoma Dan-Ogosi (Institute of Occupational Medicine)

Martin Birley (Birley HIA)

Andrew Buroni (RPS)

Liz Green (Wales Health Impact Assessment Support Unit)

Margaret Douglas (NHS Lothian)

Judy Kurth (Stoke-on-Trent City Council)

Stacy Sharman (Stoke-on-Trent City Council)

Collette Taylor (NHS North Lancashire)

Jenny Dunwoody (Arup)

Clare Kingscott (Conwy County Borough Council)

Russell Jones (Glasgow Centre for Population Health)

Martin McKee (London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine)

Alex Trouton (NHS Southwark)

Jilla Burgess-Allen (NHS Stockport)

Steven Prosser (NHS South West Essex Community Services)

Jude Stansfield (Government Office North West)

Deborah Harkins (Lancashire Public Health Network)

Heather Catt (Lancashire County Council)

Graham Esson (Perth & Kinross Council)

Dr Ellie Hothersall (University of Birmingham and NHS Stoke)

Kayt Horsley (Lancashire County Council)

Mark Broomfield (AEA Technology)

Alison Farrar (ChaMPS public health network)

Paul Johnson (Arup)

Paul Tomlinson (URS/Scott Wilson)

Nicola Morrow (Sunderland City Council)

Janet Willams (Assoc. of Voluntary Organisations in Wrexham)

Bruce Poole (Tameside Metropolitan Borough Council/NHS Tameside and Glossop)

Lucy Smith (NHS Lambeth)

Matthew Ashton (NHS Knowsley / Knowsley MBC)

Paul Fisher (Solihull NHS Care Trust)

Stephen Watkins (Stockport PCT)

Aamer Raza (Independent HIA and EIA Consultant)

Sandra Husbands (NHS Harrow)

Chimeme Egbutah (Luton Borough Council/NHS Luton)

Jacqui Thompson (NHS North Lancashire)
Emer O'Connell (Public Health Trainee, London)

International (20)

Ben Harris-Roxas (University of New South Wales, Australia)

Samantha McCrea (ERM, Australia)

Rob Quigley (Quigley and Watts, New Zealand)

Carlos Artundo (Andalusian School of Public Health, Spain)

Patrick Harris (University of New South Wales, Australia)

Meri Koivusalo (National Institute for Health and Welfare, Finland)

Marla Orenstein (Habitat Health Impact Consulting, Canada)

Murray Lee (Habitat Health Impact Consulting, Canada)

Jane Branscomb (Georgia State University, USA)

Jonathan Heller (Human Impact Partners, USA)

Jessica Anson (Monash University, Australia)   

Francesca Viliani (International SOS)

Richard Morgan (University of Otago)

Antonio Daponte (Andalusian School of Public Health, Spain)

Alberto Fernandez Ajuria (Andalusian School of Public Health, Spain)

Cathleen Baker, (San Mateo County Health System, USA)

Ame-Lia Tamburrini (Habitat Health Impact Consulting, Canada)         

Mette Winge Fredsgaard (MWF Consult, Denmark)

Mark Divall (SHAPE Consulting, South Africa)
Lee Roberts Thompson (USA)