The three-year enquiry into the interaction between health and the economy  – the Commission on Health and Prosperity – has been released.

The report states that better health is the most important medicine our economy needs for faster growth which the government has identified as one of its five key missions.

The commissioners:  chaired by top surgeon Lord Ara Darzi and Professor Dame Sally Davies, former chief medical officer for England also included Andy Burnham, Manchester mayor and a former health secretary, and Lord James Bethell, a former Conservative health minister – found that the UK’s worsening public health crisis is linked to our faltering economic performance.

How can health improve Britain’s economic challenges?

This final report conducted a new analysis that shows health could solve many of Britain’s most pressing economic challenges, including low growth and productivity.

New findings include:

  • If trends continue, economic inactivity due to sickness could hit 4.3 million by the end of this parliament, up from 2.8 million today. As of the end of 2023, an estimated 900,000 extra workers are missing from work.
  • These 900,000 missing workers could mean an estimated £5bn in lost tax receipts in 2024, while better population health could save the NHS £18bn per year by the mid-2030s.
  • Some occupations – including elementary occupations, and caring, leisure and service roles – have seen particularly high rates of workers becoming inactive due to sickness. The rate of inactivity due to sickness is highest among the working age populations of Northern Ireland, the North East and Wales.

What is Britain’s greatest untapped path to prosperity?

The Commission, which began working in early 2022 and was the first to identify economic inactivity due to sickness as a major post-pandemic challenge, has concluded that better health is Britain’s greatest untapped path to prosperity.

At the core of the Commission’s recommendations, is moving from a reactive, sickness-orientated 20th-century healthcare system into a proactive 21st-century health creation system, working in parallel to the NHS ‘sickness service’.

The Commission sets out its bold plan to move beyond only intervening when people get sick, towards a system which creates good health in all realms of life – including work, school and home.

How do you half regional health inequalities?

The overarching goal for the health creation system would be to add 10 years to healthy life expectancy by 2055 and to halve regional health inequalities.

To do that, the Commission sets out an “oven-ready” first parliament policy programme for the government’s health mission – covering a bold new childhood health programme, a comprehensive health industrial strategy to penalise polluters and support innovators, nationwide restoration of critical community infrastructure, higher standards for health at work and more integrated health and employment support services.

Specific proposals include:

  • Tax health polluters: including tobacco, alcohol and unhealthy food companies to raise over £ 10 billion per year by the end of the parliament, which could fund new good health schemes such as a fresh fruit and vegetable subsidy
  • Establish ‘Health and Prosperity Improvement (HAPI) zones’: modelled on Clean Air Zones, with new powers and national investment to rebuild local health infrastructure – such as swimming pools and green spaces – in the most health-deprived areas
  • A ‘right to try’ for people on health or disability benefits: an ironclad government commitment of a guaranteed period where people in receipt of benefits can ‘try’ work with no risk to welfare status or award level, lasting months, for everyone with a long-term condition or disability, regardless of what other reforms to health benefits look like
  • A new ‘neighbourhood health centre’ in every part of the country: a one-stop shop for diagnostics, primary care, mental health and public health with a focus on prevention
  • Create a new health index: Like GDP, the health index will provide a snapshot of how the nation’s health is changing – in a single number – to help monitor progress

The Commission also proposes a ‘new beginning’ for childhood health because there has been a substantial decline in childhood health over the last decade – meaning thousands more infant deaths, tens of thousands more children with obesity and hundreds of thousands more young people with health conditions than had stagnation continued.

The report argues this constitutes a breakdown in children’s ‘health inheritance’ and is the first time in around 200 years that a generation is not guaranteed to live a much longer, healthier life than that that came before it.

A future-generation health plan is proposed to get children’s health back on track.This includes universal free school meals, restoration of Sure Start and an end to the Two Child Limit.

Just as education is seen as an investment in children’s wellbeing today and for economic prospects tomorrow childhood health should also be seen as key to our long-term economic outcomes, the report contends.

Lord Ara Darzi, former health minister and co-chair of the Commission on Health and Prosperity said: “Our Commission was among the first to identify the rising sickness as a major and immediate post-pandemic fiscal challenge. Now, as the government sets up its health mission, our final report provides a ready made policy vision for a new approach to public health.”

Dame Sally Davies, former chief medical officer for England and Wales, a co-chair of the Commission, said: “I have long argued that better health is Britain’s greatest, untapped resource for happiness, economic growth and national prosperity. This commission has now provided the irrefutable evidence that this is true. A government that wants to deliver growth, sustainable public services and fairness throughout Britain needs to take note.

“One of the most impactful choices they could make is to prioritise a new beginning in childhood health. No one would question that education is both about a child’s immediate wellbeing and their long-term economic prospects. The same is true for health. We simply should not tolerate decline in our children’s health any longer – it is time for bold action to ensure a health inheritance for future generations.”

To read the report – click here.