Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what estimate they have made, or are planning to make, of the cost to the health service of poverty-related ill health.

The Department has not made, and is not planning to make, an estimate of the cost to the health service of poverty related ill health. However, in 2008 the Department commissioned Professor Michael Marmot of University College London to chair an independent strategic review of health inequalities in England from 2010. The Review, Fair Society, Healthy Lives, estimated that, in 2010, direct NHS healthcare costs in England associated with treating the consequences of inequality amounted to £5.5 billion per year for treating acute illness, mental illness and prescriptions. This estimate does not cover all health service activity, including primary care costs.

The review also estimated the wider costs of health inequalities, with £31-33 billion worth of productivity losses resulting from inequalities in illness, and between £20-32 billion in lost taxes and higher welfare payments. A copy of the review has been placed in the Library.