Public health funding should be linked to increases in the NHS budget, a briefing published by the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) suggests.

The think tank says that linking the two budgets will put public health on a more sustainable footing after five years of cuts that the report says have hit the most deprived communities hardest.It claims that the ten most deprived local authorities in England have seen £1 in every £7 cut from their public health budgets – compared to £1 in £46 for the ten least deprived councils.