Health: Disadvantaged

(asked on 23rd January 2023) - View Source

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, pursuant to the Answer of 11 January 2023 to Question 117924 on Life Expectancy, when the Government will set out its plans to reduce health disparities.


Answered by
Neil O'Brien Portrait
Neil O'Brien
This question was answered on 1st February 2023

The Government announced on 24 January 2023 that it will publish a Major Conditions Strategy. An interim report will be published in the summer. The strategy will set out a strong and coherent policy agenda that sets out a shift to integrated, whole-person care. Interventions set out in the strategy will aim to alleviate pressure on the health system, as well as support the Government’s objective to increase healthy life expectancy and reduce ill-health related labour market inactivity.

The strategy will tackle conditions that contribute most to morbidity and mortality across the population in England including, cancers, cardiovascular disease, including stroke and diabetes, chronic respiratory diseases, dementia, mental ill health and musculoskeletal conditions.

Health disparities exist across a wide variety of conditions from cancer to mental health, and contribute to stark and unacceptable variation in the number of years people live in good health. Therefore, the Major Conditions Strategy will apply a geographical lens to each condition to address regional disparities in health outcomes, supporting the levelling up mission to improve health and reduce disparities. As material for the Major Conditions Strategy will cover many of the same areas as the Health Disparities White Paper (HDWP), we will no longer be publishing the HDWP.

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