Liverpool’s Director of Public Health, Professor Matt Ashton, has released an 80-page document called ‘State of Health in the City’, looking at health and life expectancy in Liverpool since 1984. Ashton is calling for radical changes to the way the city responds to health challenges after his report found that unless changes are made, under the projections for 2040, residents could be spending over a quarter of their life in ill health. The number of adults experiencing depression could more than double over the coming decade and life expectancy for women would fall by one year.
An increase of between 33,000 to 38,000 in the number of people with major illness is projected in Liverpool by 2040. This includes high-blood pressure, cancer, diabetes, asthma, and chronic kidney disease. Depression diagnoses are set to over double, affecting 164,200 people. The number of people with major illness will be seven times the increase in the working age population, damaging government income from taxes as people won’t be able to work.
Ashton has outlined a number of recommendations in the report, including using data to promote health when making decisions. He has secured £5m of funding from the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) Health Determinants Research Collaboration to assist with this. Ashton also recommends integrating drug and alcohol services into a single, cohesive treatment and recovery service by 2025/26, and launching a new “Healthy Child” programme in 2025.
The report also makes three recommendations for government action. First, devolved health powers are needed to drive access and service quality improvements, minimum pricing for alcohol, and a fast food tax. Second is national policy actions to tackle smoking, obesity, and child poverty. Third is more investment in preventative services, including a 3-4 year funding settlement for local government.
Liverpool’s council leader, Liam Robinson, said that the report highlighted challenges around long-standing issues of poverty and poor housing which had been exacerbated by spending cuts. Robinson said that Liverpool should have the “ambitions of a devolved nation”, including the power to set minimum unit pricing for alcohol. Councillor Carl Cashman, of the Liverpool City Council’s opposition, said the report was a “wake-up call”, and that he would work to eradicate health inequality in the city
Read the full article on Liverpool Express here: Read More