Tackling inequalities

James Gubb, 28 March 2008

The Guardian features two blogs on health inequalities that are, to be frank, almost completely non-descript. They do a good job at listing the damning evidence – that life expectancy for those in poverty has been falling further behind the national average over the past decade, that infant mortality 19 per cent higher for “routine and manual groups” than for the total population, and that this is worse than it was in 1997-99 when it was just 13 per cent – but offer no real assessment of the problem, let alone posit a solution.

Yes, health inequalities go far beyond health care, but there is rising evidence that the NHS exacerbates the problem. With a bureaucratic straitjacket preventing innovation and localised solutions and a centralised system characterised by cost containment, access is too often determined by the loudest voice rather than choice. And the poorest members of society suffer.
As this pamphlet argues, patients – all patients – need to be genuinely empowered.
Provision must be freed to enable doctors to do their jobs again and money, for the first time, must genuinely put in the hands of patients.