Tackling Britain’s growing health crisis is the key to boosting growth, a left-wing think tank has said. The government should invest £15bn a year in a radical programme of reforms designed to improve wellbeing and national prosperity.
According to the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR), the UK’s deteriorating health situation is affecting the supply of workers, eroding productivity, driving down wages, damaging public finances and widening regional inequalities.
The final report of the thinktank’s three-year commission on health and prosperity said the 900,000 people who have dropped out of the workforce since the pandemic will cost the taxman £5bn in revenue this year, while better health would save the government £18bn a year by the mid-2030s.
The IPPR said: “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, the number of people with chronic conditions is increasing and people are spending more and more parts of their lives in poor health.”
The report – welcomed by the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, Wes Straating – called for:
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Higher taxes on tobacco, alcohol and unhealthy foods are expected to raise more than £10 billion a year by the end of the parliamentary term.
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Free school meals for all primary school children, abolition of the two-child benefit threshold and reintroduction of the Sure Start family support programme.
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The creation of Health and Wealth Improvement Zones with new powers and national investment to rebuild local health infrastructure – such as swimming pools and green spaces – in the most health deprived areas.
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A ‘right to try’ for people receiving sickness or disability benefits – a government commitment to a new and guaranteed period during which people receiving benefits can ‘try’ to work without risk to their social status or benefit level.
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A new ‘neighbourhood health centre’ in every part of the country: a one-stop shop for diagnostics, primary care, mental health and public health with a focus on prevention.
The report says the UK should aim to move from a reactive, disease-focused healthcare system of the 20th century to a proactive 21st century system designed to improve health and working in parallel with the ‘sickness care’ provided by the NHS.
Of the leading industrialised G7 countries, the UK ranked sixth for life expectancy, health spending and avoidable deaths, and fifth for children living in relative poverty. More than a quarter of its people were obese, six times higher than in Japan.
“The UK is experiencing a sharp rise in the prevalence of many long-term conditions,” the report said. “This is not just about the ageing population: children, teenagers and people of working age are also getting sicker, as are people in retirement.”
The aim of a new system for “health creation” would be to extend healthy life expectancy by 10 years by 2055 and halve regional health disparities, the report said.
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Streeting said he “valued working closely” with the IPPR committee and wanted the Department of Health and Social Care to improve economic growth, “because we cannot build a healthy economy without a healthy society”.
According to the IPPR report, if current trends continue, the number of people economically inactive due to illness could rise to 4.3 million by the end of this parliamentary term, compared with 2.8 million today.
Dame Sally Davies, former Chief Medical Officer for England and Wales and co-chair of the IPPR committee, said: “I have long believed that better health is the greatest untapped source of happiness, economic growth and national prosperity in Britain.
“This committee has now provided irrefutable evidence that this is true. Any government that wants to deliver growth, sustainable public services and fairness across Britain must take note.”