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 disparities in length of periods of poor health between (a) people in Somerset and (b) the national average.

The United Kingdom faces significant health inequalities, with life expectancy varying widely across and within communities. The Government is committed to building a fairer Britain by tackling the structural inequalities that contribute to poor health, particularly for disadvantaged groups.

The population health priorities in the South West focus on improving population health outcomes and reducing health inequalities and health disparities for inclusion groups. This includes increasing the detection and treatment of people with hypertension, improving the uptake of health checks, increasing the number of people supported to stop smoking, improving the support to people at risk of self-harming, and increasing the number of people affected by long term sickness who are supported back into employment.

The Somerset local authority received £23.1 million in Public Health Grant funding in 2024/25. This provides services such as stop smoking, drug and alcohol treatment, health visiting and school nursing, sexual health, and NHS Health Checks among others, all of which contribute to addressing health inequalities.

In the South West region, assurance and support for inequalities and inclusion is led by the regional health inequalities team, who work as a blended team across both NHS England and the Office for Health Improvement and Disparities, and who collaborate with national and integrated care system colleagues, including the Directors of Public Health within the region. The health inequalities team supports systems to accelerate the narrowing of gaps in population health outcomes relating to specific South West priorities, and supports the national Core20PLUS5 approach and the implementation of the digital inclusion framework.