The Friend Logo The Friend Logo
Search
My Account

‘Over the past decade, we’ve seen the health gap between wealthy and deprived areas grow and life expectancy fall.’

Quaker MP highlights health inequality

‘Over the past decade, we’ve seen the health gap between wealthy and deprived areas grow and life expectancy fall.’

by Rebecca Hardy 10th June 2022

A Quaker MP has highlighted the issue of rising health inequality.

Catherine West, Labour MP for Hornsey and Wood Green, said: ‘Over the past decade, we’ve seen the health gap between wealthy and deprived areas grow and life expectancy fall.’

Blaming austerity and cuts to public health spending, she said the number of health visitors has been ‘slashed’ and investment in children’s services, social care, housing and benefits has decreased.

According to the British Medical Journal, writing about the 2022 ‘Levelling Up’ white paper, the UK has particularly stark differences. ‘In 2018-20… men in the most deprived 10th of the population in England had healthy life expectancies 18.4 years shorter than men in the least deprived 10th, while in Scotland, the equivalent gap was over 23 years.’

The MP is hosting a parliamentary talk on the issue on 15 June.

Comments


Please login to add a comment