Health protection involves the prevention and control of threats to health from communicable diseases and the environment. In NSW in 2015 these functions were carried out by a range of groups, among them Health Protection NSW’s Communicable Diseases and Environmental Health branches, the NSW Ministry of Health’s Population and Public Health Division, public health units, clinicians, local health district services, local government, other government agencies, and communities.
This report highlights the major health outcomes and achievements related to Health Protection NSW’s activities in 2015.
In 2015, NSW Health issued a discussion paper as part of a review of the Public Health Act 2010 to determine whether the objects of and provisions in the Act remain valid and appropriate. The Act’s overall aim is to protect public health. It has provisions concerning powers during a public health emergency, the safe supply of drinking water, the regulation of environmental health premises (premises conducting skin penetration, containing a regulated system or public swimming pools), notification of diseases, public health orders, vaccine preventable disease, the creation of public health registers, and public health inquiries. The outcome of the review is expected in late 2016.
