EAST Lancashire councils should produce annual surveys on the health of their residents, the government has insisted.

Annual health reports, revealing how many people are fat, binge drinking, and picking up sexual diseases in every local authority, should be produced, a senior Government adviser has said.

Health advisor Derek Wanless said there should be a dedicated report covering all public health issues to allow councils and health authorities to plan where to target funds effectively.

He made the recommendation in his report into the state of the nation's health, which looks at how the Government can tackle growing problems such as obesity and heart disease, caused by poor lifestyles.

Mr Wanless said the Government needed to spend more time on promoting public health, not just the treatment of sick people, and push more research towards health promotion, which is looked down upon.

And the Government should work more closely with local authorities, schools, employers and the food industry to encourage healthier lifestyles.

He said there is no cohesive strategy on the part of the Government to tackle health, and the gathering of information was currently "poor".

"An annual report on the state of people's health, and the major determinants of health, should be made available at a local, and national, level to encourage understanding," he said.

He added: "At local level there is no regular mechanism by which a Primary Care Trust, or local authority, can gather reliable information on its own populatiopn, despite its importance for identifying population sub-groups for targeted intervention.

"The information held about individual patients is inadequate to provide such local population information comprehensively."

He said he did not want to see new laws to control manufacturers' food processes, but he wanted to see more general guidance.