10 miles distance, over 20 years less healthy life. It’s not fair. It can be addressed

Back in 2014, our Managing Partner Dan Clay led a ‘national conversation on health inequalities’ for Public Health England, highlighting how members of the public felt health inequalities could best be tackled. Eight years on and the situation is now even worse. People living in richer areas of the UK live significantly longer (8-10 years) than people living in poorer areas. And life isn’t just about length either. We also need to think about quality, and living a pain-free, healthy life. If you look at healthy life expectancy the situation is pretty dire (c. 20 years difference).

This happens all around us. Taking Bradford as an example, a women living in Wharfedale will have - on average - a healthy life expectancy of 72 years, while 10 miles away in Manningham it is just 48 years. That’s a 24 year gap. It’s 2022. That’s incredible, and shocking. 

The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) has built a reputation as a world leader in providing robust, independent and trusted advice to the health and care system. Last year they commissioned us to undertake a new public dialogue around health inequalities, to understand how the public wanted an organisation like NICE to act in regard to health inequalities. This was the first in a series of online public dialogues NICE is undertaking under the umbrella of ‘NICE Listens’. You can access the report here.

28 wonderful members of the public gave up four evenings over the course of two months to discuss and debate with each other, and ultimately set out a range of actionable priorities that NICE themselves turned into a set of internally-facing recommendations. This is great as it means they will be actionable and owned by NICE. Given their role it will also ensure health inequalities are embedded in the treatment decisions taken within health and care settings.