'Worrying’ health trends to continue under Labour’s austerity

Professor Gerard McCartney’s comments came as a new report branded the UK the “sick man of Europe” because of the high number of children and adults suffering ill health.

The Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) report said that, as a result, the health challenges facing the UK had reached “historic proportions”.

The Labour Government has said it will reform the NHS to cope with the crisis but Professor McCartney said it was necessary to ensure people had sufficient income for health trends to improve.

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While the provision of high-quality NHS services is very important for protecting the health of the population, Professor McCartney said it wasn’t a substitute for providing the incomes and public services that people need.

“Very good, high-quality health care services cannot reverse the impact of austerity policies,” said McCartney, professor of wellbeing at Glasgow University. “If we want population health trends to start improving across the UK and inequalities in health to start to narrow, we need to ensure people have sufficient income to live on and that this income is predictable.

“We need to reverse the cuts in social security and we need to reverse the sanction policies and other punishments that have been put in place to people’s incomes that endanger what people need to live on.

“But we also need to reverse the cuts to public services and in particular the cuts to local government funding which has reduced the funding and availability of key services that people need.”

Previous research by the IPPR found that around £2.3 billion of Scottish health boards’ budgets is directed at responding to the impacts of poverty.

Although the pandemic and the cost of living crisis have worsened the situation, Professor McCartney said the austerity rolled out by the previous Tory governments over the past 14 years was the most important factor “by a long way” for the poor health.

Life expectancy and good health stopped improving for the average population in 2012 and has worsened for those living in the most disadvantaged areas.

“We have a population now that is particularly unhealthy which is putting put further strain on the NHS and costing more money,” said Professor McCartney. “The worry at the moment is that if nothing changes, the figures will go up.”

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He pointed out that the new Labour Government appeared to be suggesting that the forthcoming autumn Budget was likely to continue public spending constraints because of its self-imposed fiscal rules.

“That policy direction of austerity doesn’t seem likely to change any time soon and yet the risk is that it will continue to cause population health trends that are exceptionally worrying and unprecedented,” said Professor McCartney.

Poverty Alliance chief executive Peter Kelly cited research which found a “massive” 24-year gap in healthy life expectancy between Scotland’s poorest and wealthiest areas.

“There is a clear link between ill health and the injustice of poverty in our wealthy country,” he said. “Not having enough money to heat our homes and buy healthy food can lead to stress, ill health and lives cut short but it doesn’t have to be like this.

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“Our governments can work to build a wellbeing economy with living wages, living hours and living pensions. They can reinforce our social security system so that it’s strong enough to give people the freedom they need to build a life beyond poverty. And they can strengthen the vital public services, including health and social care, that are a foundation for good health and decent life.

“Those are the kinds of actions that politicians at all levels should be urgently undertaking.”

John Dickie, of Scotland’s Child Poverty Action Group, said there was no question that poverty was a key driver of poor health with policies like the two-child limit in UK benefits increasing poverty and undermining children’s health and wellbeing, resulting in long-term costs for the economy.

“An estimated £3.5 billion additional healthcare spending can be attributed to child poverty across the UK,” he said.

“Any plan to improve the nation’s health needs to include concrete actions to boost incomes through both social security and employment.”

Dickie welcomed the fact that the new UK Government had committed to a child poverty strategy but added that for it to be credible, it needed to restore the value of social security for families – starting with scrapping the two-child limit and increasing child benefit.

“It’s scandalous that in a country as rich as ours, poverty increasingly undermines the nation’s health, damaging not just those in poverty but creating huge costs for all of us,” he said.

A spokesperson for the UK Department of Health and Social Care said: “This Government will shift the focus of the NHS from just treating sickness to preventing it in the first place.”