Your article on health inequality (Britain’s ‘medieval’ health inequality is devastating NHS, experts say, 29 June) describes the laudable efforts of NHS agencies to tackle some of the acute health problems in poorer areas. However, the real problem is that the reason we have such disparities in health is that they are directly related to the gross disparities in wealth and income in this country.
As Prof Michael Marmot and many others have demonstrated, some of the most important factors in determining health are social and economic. It is all very well for the NHS to make efforts to actively address the effects of social and economic deprivation in poor areas, but this is managing symptoms rather than the cause.
It is no coincidence that the UK has some of the worst health outcomes of developed countries and also among the worst levels of inequality. As the greatest advances in health in the past were not attributable to improvements in healthcare, but to improvements in the conditions in which people lived, so now it is reducing levels of poverty and inequality by economic and social change that are required to meaningfully address the problems identified in the article. While politicians pretend to want to address the problem, there is a consensus of inaction on the radical changes necessary because the consensus of our politics has drifted so far to the right.
Stephen Smith
Glasgow
• Re Britain’s “medieval” health inequality in what has been termed “broken Britain”, surely the only way in which the “break” can be mended is tax increases. Why does this obvious solution not get the traction it requires? Those on reasonable incomes could pay more. Those with a lot of wealth should pay more. If there was ever a need it is now. Labour should bite the bullet, and quickly.
Jol Miskin
Sheffield
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