The Health Foundation’s inquiry has found that working age adults in England’s poorest areas were almost four times more likely to die from COVID-19 than those in the wealthiest areas.
Andrew Goddard, president of the Royal College of Physicians, said: “It is indisputable that many deaths could have been prevented had we come into the pandemic with better levels of general health, especially in deprived areas.
“We were well aware of the link between poor health and social determinants like housing, employment and how much you are paid before COVID-19. Now we can see the consequences of that – excess mortality and a significantly widened gap between the most and least privileged in our society.
“If government does not tackle the avoidable causes of health inequalities, the opportunity to live longer and healthier lives will continue to be lost for far too many deprived people. We need a cross-government strategy to address health inequalities, with a strategic review of housing, jobs, education and more. That must be central to levelling up - a healthy population and a healthy economy are two sides of the same coin.”
“On top of preventing ill-health in the first place, we of course need to do more to allow people to access NHS treatment quickly. With backlogs in people coming forward, patients are now waiting almost six weeks for an outpatient appointment. With an ageing population, this situation will only get worse in the coming years unless we concentrate urgently on increasing the number of doctors by immediately providing more medical school places”.