MORE than £30 million cut to public health budgets in the North West "will make health inequalities worse" nurses have said.

The Royal College of Nursing (RCN) in the North West has criticised plans to cut £31 million from the region’s public health budget in January 2016 — including £1.34 million in Bolton.

Chancellor George Osborne announced in June that £200 million across England would be cut this year from local authority run public health budgets.

A new consultation recently published by the Department of Health shows that more than a sixth of the national cutbacks are planned to be made in the North West.

There will be £13 million of cuts to public health budgets in Greater Manchester alone.

Manchester (£3.33m), Wigan (£1.64m), Bolton (£1.34m), Salford (£1.31m) and Oldham (£1.05m) are among the biggest losers.

The UK Faculty of Public Health has said that services affected by the cutbacks could include school nursing and other child health services, suicide prevention and domestic violence prevention, drug and alcohol, sexual health, weight loss support, smoking cessation services and wider mental health provision including befriending services for older people.

Regional Director for RCN North West, Estephanie Dunn said: “These cuts will simply make health inequalities worse. The government keeps telling us they want to put prevention at the heart of health care but with a £31 million cut from the North West’s public health budget they are storing up big problems for the future.

“Already we’re seeing school nursing posts lost and other preventative health schemes squeezed out. These cuts will make health inequalities worse and disproportionately hit the most vulnerable and harder to reach communities in our cities across the region.

“It is no good claiming to protect the NHS budget but then making huge cuts to local authority services. People depend on these services to keep them well and out of hospital. Sustainable investment in preventative health saves the NHS money. In the long term, these cuts will mean the health service will end up paying for these savings many times over.”