Fiona White

Liberal Democrat Councillor for Guildford West Learn more

Health Inequality in England grows

by fionawhite on 25 June, 2020

The gap in health equality in England has grown over the last 10 years.

In 2010, Sir Michael Marmot published a review into health inequality entitled Fair SocietyHealthy Lives. He found that there was a very big gap between the life expectancy and the health quality of life between people in different social circumstances. In his report he suggested 6 priority recommendations to reduce the gap. They were:
• Give every child the best start in life
• Enable all children, young people and adults to maximise their capabilities and have control over their lives
• Create fair employment and good work for all
• Ensure a healthy standard of living for all
• Create and develop healthy and sustainable places and communities and
• Strengthen the role and impact of ill-health prevention
I have just attended a webinar where Sir Michael spoke about a 10-year review that he published in February 2020, just before COVID19 lockdown. The review covered all the areas except the sixth – ill-health prevention – because there have been many changes in that field.
Worryingly he found that the growth in life expectancy in England has stalled, particularly in the poorest communities. Health is closely linked to where people are born, grow, life, work and age. People in more deprived areas spend more of their shorter lives in ill-health than those in less deprived areas. Health is affected by inequalities in power, money and resources which are the social determinants of health.
The good thing is that the report has set out recommendations for how we can change the situation and reduce the inequalities although that will not happen overnight.
I think that British people don’t like things to be inherently unfair, where the scales are weighted against people because of where they are born, grow up, are educated and live their lives. I hope that the government will recognise the unfairness of the current situation and will act on the Marmot recommendations to start to tip the balance back to where it should be.

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