Britain has become the ‘sick man of Europe’, with the number of economically inactive adults likely to reach 4.3 million by the end of this parliamentary term, a major report has warned.
Health challenges have reached “historic proportions” and the crisis is posing a serious drag on economic prosperity, a think tank has said.
As more people become chronically ill and unable to work, better health is “the single most important medicine our economy needs to grow faster,” according to the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR).
Since the pandemic, the country has seen an increase in sick leave culture, with NHS waiting lists reaching record levels and more people suffering from mental and/or physical health conditions.
Research by the think tank shows that at the beginning of this year, 900,000 more people were on long-term sick leave than would have been the case if the trend had continued at the same level as before the pandemic.
The number of economically inactive adults in Britain is likely to reach 4.3 million by the end of this parliamentary term, a new report warns
Wes Streeting waged war on the NHS in his first speech as Health Secretary, promising to get people off NHS benefits and waiting lists and back into work
Better healthcare could save the NHS £18 billion a year, while the 900,000 “missing workers” could cause a loss of tax revenue of up to £4.5 billion by 2023, the report found.
“If growth continues at the same pace as it has since 2020, we expect illness-related economic inactivity to reach 4.3 million by the end of this parliament,” the researchers said, up from 2.8 million today.
The IPPR report says: ‘The term “the sick man of Europe” is often used to describe countries experiencing severe economic or social unrest. In Britain today it has become a more literal reality.
‘We are lagging behind our peers in health outcomes, with the number of people living with long-term conditions increasing and people living longer in poor health. And health is deteriorating across the lifespan – posing real challenges for children, adolescents, working-age adults and pensioners.
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‘The health problems in the country have reached historic proportions.’
According to the authors, improving the health of the population could be an “innovative strategy to revitalize the economy.”
“Better health is possible only if we move from a disease model of health policy to a health creation model,” they wrote. This model would “target interventions where people actually spend their time”—work, school, home, and communities.
According to the IPPR, the ‘health creation model’ could extend healthy life expectancy by ten years by 2055.
Chris Thomas of IPPR said: ‘Creating a system for creating health is a way to reimagine health policy – fit for the 21st century.’