Put health at the core of fight against inequality

THE cost of living crisis is one that will exacerbate inequalities in our society. The gap between rich and poor won’t just grow in terms of people’s bank balances, but also through their health or lack of it.

Health inequality has been a historic challenge for Scotland with life expectancy and general quality of life changing radically between one neighbourhood to the next.

Soaring inflation and record increases to energy prices will exacerbate those inequalities. We are all facing a perfect storm of rising bills, but frankly some of us are in different boats to weather that storm.

The impact this will have on people’s health are clear – the physical impact of fuel and food poverty is well known, and so too should the impact financial stress can have on people’s mental wellbeing.

We need a sustained, collaborative approach that spreads across health, social and economic factors, across communities, with health and social justice at its core. This is where we think the work of the Citizens Advice network can have a real impact.

The preventative work of CABS already saves public health services millions of pounds a year, so building on that we should be looking at a renewed social contract with the wider voluntary sector to deliver local outcomes.

Someone who visits a CAB and

We need a sustained, collaborative approach across communities, with health and social justice at its core

has their income maximised to the point where they no longer have to choose between heating and eating avoids negative health consequences. Independent research reveals that those savings were the equivalent of over £15m in mental health spending and £7.3m in physical health spending.

Poverty leads to additional pressure on health and social care services. A preventative approach based on early intervention could increase these savings to the public purse, which could be redirected elsewhere.

You can’t put a price on good health, but you can put a cost on poverty. That’s not a solution we should allow in Scotland and it’s something CABS are keen to change

Using the full potential of the preventative and early intervention infrastructure offered by CABS to augment current personal services will mitigate demand in the long term by stopping problems becoming worse and on an individual and community level tangibly improve health.

Not dealing with poverty now and what causes health inequalities, means we are storing up more problematic outcomes for the most vulnerable communities but also not tackling the right thing, not treating more of the symptoms but more of the causes.

CABS have a clear and underutilised place in the preventative and early intervention public health and social care space, now more than ever given the cost of living crisis and pressure on health board and local authority budgets.