Quarterly News from the Wales Health Impact Assessment Support Unit WHIASU Overview and Update Autumn 2015 During 2015, the Wales Health Impact Assessment Support Unit (WHIASU) has built on progress made over recent years advocating for, training and supporting health impact assessments (HIA) in Wales. This has resulted in an increased number of training sessions and Rapid Assessments and a burgeoning number of HIAs completed, many of which are published on the WHIASU website. The Unit is now fully integrated into Public Health Wales (PHW), as part of the Policy, Research and International Development Directorate but still retains academic links to Cardiff, Bangor and Glyndwr Universities. At a local level, the Unit continues to provide advice, guidance and support to local authorities, Local Health Boards (LHBs) and voluntary and community groups interested in developing local HIA and integration tools. Some local authorities are already progressing with embedding impact assessment, including HIA, in the organisational processes and systems. The introduction of the Wellbeing of the Future Generations (Wales) Act (FGA) 2015 provides further opportunity for public bodies to incorporate HIAs in their work, thereby helping them to deliver on the requirements of the Act. . At a national level, WHIASU continues to liaise with its strategic partners including Welsh Government, the Chartered Institute of Environmental Health (Wales Directorate), Sports Wales and Natural Resources Wales and is leading the development of several Public Health Wales resources to practically support practitioners and policy makers in the delivery of HIA and ‘Health in All Policies’ in Wales, and specifically to support the introduction of the FGA. Internationally, the Unit is highly respected and has delivered presentations at several national and international conferences such as the International Association of Impact Assessment (IAIA) Conference in April 2015 and the Community Housing Cymru Conference in May 2015. Liz Green has also been asked to speak at the World Health Organisation (WHO) ‘Health in Environmental Assessment’ Technical Meeting in Bonn in September 2015. More information about the Unit’s achievements and work is listed in more detail below.
Policy and Guidance Update NHS Wales Infrastructure Guidance The Welsh Government and NHS Wales have recently published the NHS Wales Infrastructure Investment Guidance. Section 2.5 of the Guidance states that: “The Welsh Government supports the use of HIA as part of the evidence to justify infrastructure investment proposals”.