Key Health Data for the West Midlands 2002
CHAPTER SIX: INTEGRATED POLLUTION PREVENTION CONTROL
List of Tables
List of Figures
Main Body
1: The Geography of the West Midlands
2: Life Expectancy and Inequalities
3: Drinking Water Quality
4: Chemical incidents in the West Midlands
5: Landfill Sites
6: IPPC
7: Fires in the West Midlands
8: Road Traffic Accidents
9: Drownings
10: Access to a healthy diet
11: National Health Service Priority Areas
12: Communicable Disease
13: Older People
Integrated Pollution Prevention Control (IPPC) requires the authorisation by the Environment Agency or local authority of certain industrial processes such as incinerators, chemical works, metals industries and intensive farming. New processes must apply for authorisation before operation and there is a timetable for existing processes. Primary Care Trusts (PCTs) are now 'statutory consultees' and receive applications for public health input and in particular for:
- advice on any particular local health problems, and
- consideration of the likely impact on human health and identification of priority substances for control.
The response must be received within 28 days and is placed on the Public Register. IPPC applications have a large and highly technical content which requires considerable expertise (beyond the remit and scope of PCTs) to assess and interpret. The West Midlands Public Health Observatory funded a pilot study to support Health Authorities (HAs) and to quantify the resources necessary to enable PCTs to fulfil their responsibilities in the longer term (Saunders 2002).
The pilot revealed a much greater emphasis on the human health aspect of environmental issues and a far greater number of applications than anticipated in early 2002. In addition, there has been a general consensus that greater consistency in the quality of the Health Service response was required. Consequently, the Chemical Hazards Management and Research Centre (CHMRC) has been commissioned to support PCTs in the West Midlands and has dealt with over 60 applications. The CHMRC provides assessment of the information/data provided in the application, the appropriateness of the modelling and the public health impact in terms of pollution and noise.
The regulators and the Health Service also agreed that the CHMRC in conjunction with the Environment Agency would develop and maintain an internet based national database of IPPC applications which would allow the rapid identification of process applications and the agencies working on them (CHMRC 2002). This will enable those with responsibilities for responding to talk to others with experience of particular processes. While the database is still in its infancy and will be developed to take account of the current reorganisation of the Health Service, it is a useful tool for those working in this area.
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Figure 6.1. Map of IPPC process applications West Midlands 2001. |
References
Saunders PJ, Kibble AJ, Harrison RM. Public Health Input to Integrated Pollution Prevention Control (IPPC) Final Report to the Public Health Observatory, Chemical Hazard Management and Research Centre, University of Birmingham, 2002.
CHMRC, 2002 (at http://www.publichealth.bham.ac.uk/ippc/)
For more information please contact Sarafina
Cotterill on 0121 414 3368
© Department of Public Health and Epidemiology, University
of Birmingham