Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps his Department is taking to tackle health inequalities in (a) Coventry North East constituency, (b) Coventry, (c) the West Midlands and (d) England.

In the white paper ‘Levelling Up the United Kingdom’, published in February 2022, the Government set out a levelling up health mission to narrow the gap in healthy life expectancy (HLE) between local areas where it is highest and lowest by 2030, and increase HLE by five years by 2035. A range of action is being taken forward which will support progress on the health mission, including the development of a Major Conditions Strategy on which an interim report will be published in the summer.

The Office of Health Improvement and Disparities’ (OHID) regional teams work closely with Local Directors of Public Health to ensure the ring-fenced public health grant funds evidence-based activity to improve health and tackle health inequalities. The public health grant funding allocated to Coventry for 2023/24 was £23,962,345. In addition to the grant, an additional £709,229 was allocated to invest in the local authority’s drug misuse services as part of the National Drug Strategy.

Coventry is one of 75 English local authority areas receiving funding through the Family Hubs and Start for Life programme. This programme aims to improve outcomes for babies, children and families by improving access to local services, with a particular focus on the first 1001 days from conception to age two. This will contribute to a reduction in inequalities in health and education outcomes in Coventry, the West Midlands, and across England. Coventry is also one of the existing Targeted Lung Health Check pilots which have been rolled out to deprived areas with the highest level of lung cancer mortality.

TARGET DATE 18/07/2023

OHID’s regional team works alongside NHS England Midlands and integrated care systems to tackle healthcare inequalities embedding the Core20PLUS5 for children and adults. The approach defines a target population, the ‘Core20PLUS’, and identifies ‘5’ focus clinical areas requiring accelerated improvement. Work continues with West Midlands Combined Authority to take forward a health in all policies approach across the wider determinants of health.