Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask His Majesty's Government what plans they have, if any, to publish a white paper on tackling health disparities.

The Government announced on 24 January 2023 that it will publish a Major Conditions Strategy, with an interim report to be published in the summer. The strategy will set out a policy agenda outlining 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 such as cancers, cardiovascular disease (including stroke and diabetes), chronic respiratory diseases, dementia, mental ill-health and musculoskeletal conditions.

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.