Public health budgets in the North among the worst affected by cuts, new research reveals

A report from think tanks IPPR and IPPR North has revealed how despite overwhelming evidence that public health grants represent value for money, they were cut by £750m across England between 2014/2015 and 2020/2021, with all regions affected.

But the Midlands endured per-person cuts 26 per cent higher than the England average, and North 15 per cent higher.

The report found that those areas that saw the highest rates of mortality during the first wave of Covid-19 had also seen the biggest cuts to their public health budgets.

But the research found that many different factors impact health outcomes, one of which is likely to be reductions in public health budgets.

A Department for Health and Social Care spokesman said the Government had a “strong track record on public health”.

But Chris Thomas, Senior Health Fellow at IPPR and co-author of the report said: “Today’s figures lay bare the deeply unjust impact of public health cuts on people across England. They were nonsensical cuts to budgets that made a considerable difference to people’s health, to our economy, to our resilience. A change of track is long overdue.

“The places where we live, work, grow up and grow old all play a fundamental role in shaping our health. Our health and our economies are intimately linked, and inequalities in either of them are not inevitable.

“To succeed in recovering from Covid-19 and ‘levelling up’ the nation, central government must make ending health inequalities a priority. Only by supporting local experts to invest in the health and resilience of people in places across the country, will we create a fair and prosperous economy”.

While Hannah Davies, Health Inequality Lead for the Northern Health Science Alliance said: “The disproportionate effect of the Covid-19 pandemic on the North has thrown into sharp focus of how closely health and the economy are interlinked.

“The £20bn lost from the economy each year due to inequalities between the North and South of the country must be tackled through a levelling-up strategy which takes into account this disparity and the huge potential in investing in health prevention, health research and development and the NHS.

“We support the recommendations in this important new report to view health as a new national mission and for a stronger and more local approach to health investment, taking account of the role of health in driving prosperity and economic inclusion.”

A Department of Health and Social Care spokesman said: “We have a strong track record on public health – smoking levels are at an all-time low, more people than ever are being tested for sexually transmitted infections and we have launched an obesity strategy to make the healthy choice the easy choice and help reduce obesity rates.

“We are supporting Directors of Public Health and their teams to protect and improve the public’s health during the current pandemic and beyond, and in the recent Spending Review committed to maintaining the public health grant, meaning local authorities can continue to invest in prevention and essential frontline health services.”

They added that the Government had also made more than £10bn available to local councils to address the costs and impacts of Covid-19.