Diane Abbott warns against widening life expectancy gap

19 Oct 2011
Diane Abbott MP, the Shadow Health Minister comments on widening life expectancy gap:

‘These new figures make the recent warning by over 400 senior doctors and public health experts that the government’s bill Health and Social Care Bill will widen inequalities even more important. The government needs to think again on a range of policies, because what we are seeing is welfare cuts, rising unemployment, and a fragmentation of health services, which will hit poorer areas harder and make health inequalities even worse.

‘The government is taking the ‘N’ out of the NHS and consigning parts of the country to a massive postcode lottery. This government believes that it is good to have instability in the system arising out of a competition-based system that will in their view improve services. However, there is a significant danger that its effect on health inequalities and provision will be detrimental as price competition drives the quality of care downwards.

‘Changes to the funding for primary care trusts mean that the government is moving NHS spending in England away from poorer areas towards richer parts of the country. The government’s fragmentation of the NHS and public health work will push us in completely the wrong direction.’

‘Local authorities are having to make unprecedented cuts. Even though they will be getting ring-fenced public health money, the likelihood is that some of that money will sucked into public health related areas like social care. It is completely disingenuous for Lansley to claim that he is investing in the country’s public health, in the way he is claiming.’

-ENDS -

1) The letter from public health experts: http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2011/oct/03/nhs-bill-doctors-lords
2) NHS funds being moved to richer areas: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-14356517
3) See page 68 to show slashed budgets on public health campaigns for this current year 11/12:
http://www.dh.gov.uk/prod_consum_dh/groups/dh_digitalassets/documents/digitalasset/dh_126449.pdf
4) Tory-led proposals for the NHS will see the responsibility to provide care taken away from the Secretary of State and passed over to an unelected Commissioning Board and local commissioning consortia. The role of the Secretary of State will be severely diminished leaving him with no real power to act to improve health outcomes or reduce health inequalities.
5) Criticism of the government’s obesity strategy: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-2048738/Jamie-Oliver-blasts-Andrew-Lansleys-plan-tackle-obesity.html
6) In Government, Labour closed the gap on cardio vascular disease by almost a third; on cancer, it closed by an eighth. On infant mortality, whilst the overall trend is still poor, there was a slight narrowing of the gap.
7) In 1998, 3.4 million children were living in absolute poverty. This has now halved.

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