Authorities joining forces to tackle city's health divide

HEALTH chiefs in Sheffield have teamed up to try to reduce the inequalities that exist between the city’s richest and poorest.

Sheffield Council and NHS Sheffield’s joint “Health Inequalities Action Plan” aims to identify why there are gaps in life expectancy and health between different communities and what can be done.

At present, the richest men in Sheffield can expect to live 11 years longer than the poorest, while the richest women have a life expectancy six years greater than those in the most disadvantaged areas.

The rates of women smoking during pregnancy also differs from zero to 40 per cent in different areas of the city.

A Sheffield Council spokesman said: “Employment has direct benefits to health and in Sheffield there are 16,400 Jobseekers Allowance claimants, 41.2 per cent of whom have been out of work for six months or longer.”

Councillor Steve Ayris, Sheffield Council’s cabinet member for health, said there was a “worrying and unacceptable gap between different communities in the city.”

He added: “Doing nothing is not an option and tackling this is an important priority over the next three years.

“This action plan is groundbreaking because it takes into account for the first time the impact of a huge range of things in a person's life that contribute to how healthy they are and tackles the root causes of ill health.

“Everything from housing, poverty and discrimination, to the environment, the availability of employment, parks and green spaces, and the food that we eat will be addressed.”

NHS Sheffield’s public health director Jeremy Wight said: “Reducing health inequalities is a shared ambition of both the council and the NHS. There is already a lot of good work going on across the city to improve health where it is poor. The work done with taxi drivers to identify lifestyles that put their health at risk, and to help them change those, has been groundbreaking. The action plan sets out how we build on the good work, and so continue to reduce inequalities.”

By 2013 the project aims to have made “significant differences” to Sheffield and built “a foundation for healthier lives for everyone in the city, regardless of age, background or area.”