Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask Her Majesty's Government what plans they have to implement a health inequalities strategy that targets deprivation and focuses on the impact on (1) physical, and (2) mental, ill-health.

On 1 October we launched the Office for Health Improvement and Disparities (OHID). The OHID will work in partnership with national and local government, the National Health Service, the voluntary sector, industry and the wider public health system to systematically tackle the top preventable risk factors, such as smoking and obesity, improving the public’s health and narrowing health disparities.

We are also implementing an obesity strategy, supporting interventions to reduce smoking and providing investment to improve access to health services. We have invested £100 million for weight management services, with higher levels of funding for local areas with higher levels of deprivation and obesity rates. We have increased the Public Health Grant to over £3.3 billion in 2021/22, with the Grant’s distribution weighted towards areas facing the greatest population health challenges and highest levels of deprivation.

We have invested £15 million in 2021/22 in a prevention and early intervention stimulus package to promote positive mental health in the most deprived local authority areas in England.