The House: DHSC alone cannot fix our health and care crisis
Health is created in homes, schools, workplaces and communities, long before anyone reaches a hospital, and in a new article our founder, Baroness Geeta Nargund, has set out part of what this should mean for policy.
She is calling for a sub-Cabinet-level Health and Care Equity Taskforce reporting directly to the Prime Minister. It would bring together ministers from Health, Housing, Education, Work and Pensions, the Treasury and local government, alongside public health experts, NHS leaders, social care, business and the voluntary sector. Its remit would be to judge every major departmental policy by what it does to the nation's health.
The evidence for that approach is well established. Around 80 per cent of health outcomes are determined by the wider social determinants of health: where people are born, grow up, learn, work, live and age. England now has a gap of nearly 20 years in healthy life expectancy between its most deprived and most affluent communities. The Treasury determines investment. Housing affects respiratory disease and mental health. Work and Pensions shapes financial security. Transport determines who can reach care. No single department holds those levers.
Our own research shows how this plays out for women. In Unheard, Unsafe, Unequal, 53 per cent of women told us a healthcare professional had dismissed or downplayed their symptoms. Nearly a quarter had reduced their hours or left work because of childcare costs. Forty-four per cent had avoided a place or route in the past year because they felt unsafe, rising to 69 per cent among women aged 18 to 24. Childcare policy, street safety and employment rights are not health policy as currently organised, but they determine women's health outcomes.
This is the change we want to see. A taskforce with a direct line to the Prime Minister and a mandate to assess policy against its health impact would put the levers and the objective in the same place. We will keep making the case for it.