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Individuals should rely less on the state and take more responsibility themselves to improve public health, a social services director said.

John Beer, executive director of health and social care at Southampton Council, said many people saw professionals as primarily responsible for their health rather than themselves.

At a session on partnerships between social care and the NHS in public health, he said: "If you ask people about health they will say 'when I get ill I want it to be sorted'. But it's about us as individuals making changes.

"It's more difficult for the government, for the NHS and for local government."