Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps his Department is taking to help tackle health inequalities impacting children in poverty in Fylde constituency.

The United Kingdom faces significant health inequalities, with healthy life expectancy varying widely across and between communities. Through our Health Mission, we are focused on addressing the wider determinants of health to improve healthy life expectancy for all and to halve the gap in healthy life expectancy between different regions of England.

The Department is working closely with the Child Poverty Taskforce to develop and deliver an ambitious strategy to reduce child poverty, tackle the root causes, and give every child, including those in Fylde constituency, the best start in life. This will help fulfil our ambition to raise the healthiest generation of children ever. An important part of this will be alleviating the negative experience of living in poverty through supporting families and enhancing public services.

The Office for Health Improvement and Disparities’ North West Regional Team is working to provide system leadership for population health and for reducing health inequalities across the North West, including the Fylde constituency.