‘Health divide will widen if no action is taken’
HEALTH INEQUALITIES between the region’s most affluent and deprived areas will widen without action, Public Health England’s director for the North has said, amplifying a NorthSouth divide.
Professor Paul Johnstone, reflecting on the NHS on its 70th birthday week, said the country’s health services are something to be celebrated and prized.
Having worked as a junior doctor and GP, he said it was seen as an honour to be trained within the NHS, a service recognised internationally as a world leader.
But he said there were challenges ahead amid an increasingly ageing population, rising demand and expectation, and a “finite” resource.
“It’s a very precious gift, the NHS,” he said. “It’s seen huge change. Aneurin Bevan wouldn’t recognise the National Health Service today – but he would be proud. And the rate of change is going to be much quicker – we will see as much change in the next 15 years as we have in the past 70.”
Prof Johnstone, tasked with protecting the nation’s health in the North, is a former director of public health for NHS North of England and visiting professor at Leeds Beckett University.
Looking back at achievements in bringing change, he cites examples including a smoking ban for public spaces, which has led to a dramatic fall in case rates for early heart disease. There has been a sea-change in recognition of the NHS as an economic player, he said, demanding respect not just as a provider of health services but as employer, investor and purchaser.
And the region has driven change for strategic health directives within local authorities, in recognition that the NHS alone cannot solve public ill health.
But, he adds, pressure has risen and will likely continue to rise, with an ageing population, advances in technology and raised expectations.
The NHS, which once saw a million people every 36 hours, now treats 1.4m every 24 hours, he warns, adding that work around prevention and healthy lifestyles is critically important.
He said: “I hope to see more people saying ‘we can take responsibility for our own health’.”
There are fears, he said, over a widening of health inequalities.
“It’s fantastic news that we are living longer, but the benefit is not spread across the whole of the population,” he added. “Life expectancy and security in some deprived areas is set to get worse.
“Our elderly, more affluent people are set to live longer, but not those in more deprived areas. The most fundamental way of tackling health inequalities is through tackling deprivation. We are still to see that implemented as it’s needed, and we are going to see increasing tension between rich and poor. Without greater focus on these inequalities, the North-South divide will widen.
“Encouragingly, Yorkshire leaders are working on devolution. In other parts of the country, devolution deals focused quite a lot on tackling this. That can help to stem the tension.”
The NHS, he said, has become a victim of its own success – in developing treatments and technologies it has created demand.
“The NHS enjoys huge public backing,” he said. “This, its 70th birthday, is a historic moment for us – to celebrate and support it. I hope that the younger generation coming through can support it as much.
“The alternatives are just not nearly as good.”