Javid promises relentless focus on health inequality

BRITAIN faces a severe backlog in mental health support and public health provision because of the pandemic, Sajid Javid has warned.

The Health Secretary signalled that rising NHS hospital waiting lists account for only part of the nation’s health backlog. While the peak of the Covid crisis appears to have passed, fractures in the NHS had deepened, he said.

Speaking in Blackpool yesterday, he pointed to disparities in Covid admissions between the most and least deprived parts of the country. Covid hospitalisations were almost three times higher, and deaths 2.4 times higher, in the poorest areas of England, Mr Javid said.

People from black, Asian and ethnic minority backgrounds make up less than 14 per cent of the UK population, but have accounted for more than a third of critical care admissions from Covid.

He also pointed out that around 95 per cent of white Britons over 50 have accepted the offer of two doses of the jab, compared to only 67 per cent of black Caribbean people.

He vowed that the new Office for Health Improvement and Disparities (OHID) would have a “relentless focus” on health inequalities. OHID will take over public health work from Public Health England, and Mr Javid said it would have “a driving mission to level up health and ensure everyone has a chance to live happy and healthy lives”.

He addressed mental health, saying “too many people” had experienced loneliness and isolation over the pandemic, while numbers waiting for routine mental health treatment soared. Mr Javid said the Government had promised an extra £2.3billion per year to transform mental health services by 2023.