Last Thursday evening, just as I've done for the past nine weeks, I have joined my neighbours in standing outside at eight o'clock to clap for the NHS. In what has been a difficult and often frightening time it has always represented a moment of much needed hope and solidarity.
The question is, should this week, the tenth, be the last time we all do so? Annemarie Plas the Dutch born Londoner who started the weekly nationwide round of applause for NHS staff and other key workers thinks so.
Speaking on BBC Radio 2's Jeremy Vine show last week she said 'because this is the ninth time and next week will be ten times, I think it would be beautiful to be the end of the series'.
Ms Plas has expressed concerns that the event is in danger of becoming politicised, telling the BBC that she felt the ' narrative is starting to change and I don't want the clap to be negative '.
She suggested that it was perhaps time to look at creating an 'annual moment to remember' NHS workers and the lives lost during the pandemic.
Despite her concerns Ms Plas did make a broad political point in her BBC interview, saying that ordinary people had shown their support and gratitude and that it was now up to 'the people that are in power to reward NHS staff and carers and give them the respect they deserve'.
A point not entirely dissimilar from one made by Labour leader Sir Kier Stamer and also reported by the BBC, who said that many key workers felt 'overlooked and underpaid ' and that they would benefit from extra funding rather than applause.
I can only speak from personal experience, but something does seem to have changed over the past couple of weeks.
The first few times we all stood outside clapping for the caseworkers battling a disease that was, killing hundreds of people every day it felt like being part of something special. A small act of defiance against despair and a welcome chance to interact at a time when we were all socially distancing like our lives depended on it; because they just might.
Things have definitely changed, the noise of hands clapping and people cheering like they were at a football match has stopped ringing over the rooftops. There is usually maybe half a dozen of us stood there going through the motions in an awkwardly self-conscious way that is uniquely English.
That maybe isn't such a surprise, the existential threat has, hopefully, passed and as a result how we feel about the pandemic has changed. It has morphed from a monster into a lead weight dragging behind the lives we are all trying in our own way and at our own speed to get back.
Perhaps the time has come to move on from what was a spontaneous show of support to a more formal act of remembrance. A collective experience that has upended so many lives into grief and uncertainty deserves to be marked with solemn ceremony equivalent to that of Remembrance Sunday.
Having said that I will be outside my house applauding this Thursday evening, preserving a tradition that will die out and then re-emerge in time as something else. Like every sacrifice made for the good of others the sacrifices of NHS workers and the grief of those who have lost loved ones deserves to be remembered in the setting and rising of the sun.
Wednesday, 27 May 2020
Monday, 18 May 2020
A Country Where So Many People Have Limited Access to Green Spaces Can Never Be Truly Healthy.
The past few weeks have made us all painfully aware of the value of good health. We have been given a glimpse of the world our not so distant ancestors knew. One where illness is an arbitrary threat and if we wind up in the sickroom there is a worrying chance death may be gibbering in the corner.
We have also been shown that health is one of the fault lines exposing the inequalities in our society. The poorer you are the more likely you are to fall ill and if you do the less likely you are to have a positive outcome.
The poor have always missed out on those things that make living a life that is comfortable and healthy possible, like having access to green spaces.
Research carried out by the European Centre for the Environment and Human Health at Exeter University in 2014 found that people living in green urban areas showed fewer signs of anxiety and depression. In 2016 a briefing document prepared for the Houses of Parliament office of science and technology showed that physical and mental health is influenced by access to green spaces.
The more green spaces there are near to where they live the more active people are and the better they feel about themselves. Improving access to green spaces was made one of the aims of government plans to use social prescribing to help people with mental and physical health issues.
This still matters now we are living in the world of social distancing; in fact, it is more important than ever. Anyone who has spent the past eight weeks trying not to climb the walls of their home will attest that being able to go out into even the smallest of gardens has been a lifesaver.
What of the prospects then of the 12% of British households identified by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) as having no access to a private or even shared garden?
In London that jumps to 21% and the same will be true of other major cities where property prices are high and the gap between right and poor is wide. A fact attested to by ONS data showing that 20% of households where members are in ‘low skilled’ work have no gardens, compared to 7% of those in admin work. BME households also have less access to green space with 37% having no garden.
During the pandemic we have learnt, rightly, think differently about so called ‘low skilled’ workers, many of whom have been in the front line working for the NHS or helping to keep food on the shelves. Is it right that their home, the place where we all expect to be safest should put their health at risk?
The great public health campaigns of the nineteenth century had improving where people lived as much as how they lived and what happened when they fell sick at their heart. As did the Labour government that created the NHS in 1948, sickness was one of the ‘five giants’ Bevan pledged to slay, by building decent housing as well as hospitals.
In the 1980’s and since such thinking has been dismissed as so much idealistic utopianism. All very good in theory, but quite impractical in a world where the market calls the tune and we must all dance along as best we might.
Now we know differently, through the hard route of bitter experience rather than through reason winning the argument with expediency. Disadvantaged communities where social distancing is harder than it is in the suburbs have been hit hardest by covid-19 with poor living conditions creating health inequalities that have led to more deaths.
We need to build back differently as well as stronger, the NHS needs to be properly funded, with a large slice going towards paying all its staff a living wage. There also has to be a recognition that health doesn’t begin and end at the door of the hospital or doctor’s surgery.
It begins at people’s front doors, which should be attached to good quality homes they can afford to live in. Ideally these doors would open onto individual gardens, on a small island that isn’t always practical, but every home should be within walking distance of a public park that is safe and pleasant to use.
There has been a lot of talk in recent weeks about ‘key workers’ being heroes; it is time then to give them the homes they deserve.
We have also been shown that health is one of the fault lines exposing the inequalities in our society. The poorer you are the more likely you are to fall ill and if you do the less likely you are to have a positive outcome.
The poor have always missed out on those things that make living a life that is comfortable and healthy possible, like having access to green spaces.
Research carried out by the European Centre for the Environment and Human Health at Exeter University in 2014 found that people living in green urban areas showed fewer signs of anxiety and depression. In 2016 a briefing document prepared for the Houses of Parliament office of science and technology showed that physical and mental health is influenced by access to green spaces.
The more green spaces there are near to where they live the more active people are and the better they feel about themselves. Improving access to green spaces was made one of the aims of government plans to use social prescribing to help people with mental and physical health issues.
This still matters now we are living in the world of social distancing; in fact, it is more important than ever. Anyone who has spent the past eight weeks trying not to climb the walls of their home will attest that being able to go out into even the smallest of gardens has been a lifesaver.
What of the prospects then of the 12% of British households identified by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) as having no access to a private or even shared garden?
In London that jumps to 21% and the same will be true of other major cities where property prices are high and the gap between right and poor is wide. A fact attested to by ONS data showing that 20% of households where members are in ‘low skilled’ work have no gardens, compared to 7% of those in admin work. BME households also have less access to green space with 37% having no garden.
During the pandemic we have learnt, rightly, think differently about so called ‘low skilled’ workers, many of whom have been in the front line working for the NHS or helping to keep food on the shelves. Is it right that their home, the place where we all expect to be safest should put their health at risk?
The great public health campaigns of the nineteenth century had improving where people lived as much as how they lived and what happened when they fell sick at their heart. As did the Labour government that created the NHS in 1948, sickness was one of the ‘five giants’ Bevan pledged to slay, by building decent housing as well as hospitals.
In the 1980’s and since such thinking has been dismissed as so much idealistic utopianism. All very good in theory, but quite impractical in a world where the market calls the tune and we must all dance along as best we might.
Now we know differently, through the hard route of bitter experience rather than through reason winning the argument with expediency. Disadvantaged communities where social distancing is harder than it is in the suburbs have been hit hardest by covid-19 with poor living conditions creating health inequalities that have led to more deaths.
We need to build back differently as well as stronger, the NHS needs to be properly funded, with a large slice going towards paying all its staff a living wage. There also has to be a recognition that health doesn’t begin and end at the door of the hospital or doctor’s surgery.
It begins at people’s front doors, which should be attached to good quality homes they can afford to live in. Ideally these doors would open onto individual gardens, on a small island that isn’t always practical, but every home should be within walking distance of a public park that is safe and pleasant to use.
There has been a lot of talk in recent weeks about ‘key workers’ being heroes; it is time then to give them the homes they deserve.
Monday, 11 May 2020
Baby Steps into a New World Where We All are Going to Have to be a Little Braver.
There was a cruel irony in the BBC screening Darkest Hour, a film about Winston Churchill helping a seemingly defeated Britain regain its mojo in 1940, the night before Boris Johnson’s latest address to the nation.
Never in the course of political mishaps has a speech been so massively anticipated only to deliver so little.
If the more excitable elements in the media, which is most of it these days, were to be believed the end of our two-month lockdown was nigh. The reality, revealed by a government backpedaling like a unicyclist on piecework, was a range of, sensibly, cautious amendments to the rules.
If we have learnt anything about our current prime minister is that Mr. Johnson and set-piece speeches don’t mix well. He can never seem to find the correct register, instead of exuding gravitas in the manner of French president Emmanuel Macron he comes over more like the class clown awkwardly reading the lesson in chapel.
We should, perhaps, be thankful that unlike Donald Trump at least he doesn’t offer advice to down a flagon of bleach to ward off the virus. A piece of medical advice so deranged it would have failed to pass muster in the Middle Ages, but somehow was taken seriously by a large slice of middle America.
One thing is for sure ‘we will come back from this devilish illness’ is unlikely to join ‘we shall fight on the beaches…’ in the lexicon of quotes trotted out at future moments of national crisis.
Neither will the new slogan ‘stay alert, control the virus, save lives’, which has replaced ‘stay home, protect the NHS, save lives’; although it has allowed news correspondents who did English at Oxbridge to dust off their critical faculties by analyzing it as if it were one of the more gnomic lines from Pinter or Becket.
The changes to the lockdown rules themselves seem sensible, if vague. From Wednesday people who can’t work from home will be encouraged to go back to work if they can, schools and some shops could open again from the start of June, other businesses including pubs could open from the start of July. All this, we were reminded was contingent on the R-number staying low and social distancing rules being followed.
A cautious road map for progress that doesn’t so much promise jam tomorrow as giving us a glimpse of a cupboard that might, just might though, have some jam in it. After two months of bad news and the likelihood of worse to come, this time about the health of the economy, it is better than nothing.
In the spirit of fairness last night’s broadcast wasn’t anywhere near as bad as many in the Tory Party might have feared. Brand Boris is back on the road, the rest of us though will be hoping that he has learnt to temper his ambition and mercurial energy with a little self-doubt. Best not to hold our breath though.
At the end of the day government can only guide us so far along the road into our new normal. We as individuals have to think seriously about the risks we are willing to take, there is no one size fits all option, being hesitant doesn’t make you weak; wanting to push ahead isn’t necessarily foolhardy. Humans being what we are we will most of us hold both positions and a dozen others in the space of a single afternoon.
One thing is certain, the world we are slowly returning to will not be entirely like to one we left. Making our way through it may mean we all have to be a little braver.
Never in the course of political mishaps has a speech been so massively anticipated only to deliver so little.
If the more excitable elements in the media, which is most of it these days, were to be believed the end of our two-month lockdown was nigh. The reality, revealed by a government backpedaling like a unicyclist on piecework, was a range of, sensibly, cautious amendments to the rules.
If we have learnt anything about our current prime minister is that Mr. Johnson and set-piece speeches don’t mix well. He can never seem to find the correct register, instead of exuding gravitas in the manner of French president Emmanuel Macron he comes over more like the class clown awkwardly reading the lesson in chapel.
We should, perhaps, be thankful that unlike Donald Trump at least he doesn’t offer advice to down a flagon of bleach to ward off the virus. A piece of medical advice so deranged it would have failed to pass muster in the Middle Ages, but somehow was taken seriously by a large slice of middle America.
One thing is for sure ‘we will come back from this devilish illness’ is unlikely to join ‘we shall fight on the beaches…’ in the lexicon of quotes trotted out at future moments of national crisis.
Neither will the new slogan ‘stay alert, control the virus, save lives’, which has replaced ‘stay home, protect the NHS, save lives’; although it has allowed news correspondents who did English at Oxbridge to dust off their critical faculties by analyzing it as if it were one of the more gnomic lines from Pinter or Becket.
The changes to the lockdown rules themselves seem sensible, if vague. From Wednesday people who can’t work from home will be encouraged to go back to work if they can, schools and some shops could open again from the start of June, other businesses including pubs could open from the start of July. All this, we were reminded was contingent on the R-number staying low and social distancing rules being followed.
A cautious road map for progress that doesn’t so much promise jam tomorrow as giving us a glimpse of a cupboard that might, just might though, have some jam in it. After two months of bad news and the likelihood of worse to come, this time about the health of the economy, it is better than nothing.
In the spirit of fairness last night’s broadcast wasn’t anywhere near as bad as many in the Tory Party might have feared. Brand Boris is back on the road, the rest of us though will be hoping that he has learnt to temper his ambition and mercurial energy with a little self-doubt. Best not to hold our breath though.
At the end of the day government can only guide us so far along the road into our new normal. We as individuals have to think seriously about the risks we are willing to take, there is no one size fits all option, being hesitant doesn’t make you weak; wanting to push ahead isn’t necessarily foolhardy. Humans being what we are we will most of us hold both positions and a dozen others in the space of a single afternoon.
One thing is certain, the world we are slowly returning to will not be entirely like to one we left. Making our way through it may mean we all have to be a little braver.
Saturday, 9 May 2020
As the Biggest Recession in History Looms it is Time for A New Settlement.
This week the press got itself into a frightful state prophesying a lifting of lockdown regulations, partly thanks to ambiguous government messaging. Prompting a display of speedy back-pedaling from Downing Street that would get the average Tour De France contestant drug tested.
Meanwhile back at the economic ranch the Bank of England let slip the prediction that the UK economy could shrink by 14% this year due to the pandemic. Anyone cynical enough to think that mixed messages have been used to partially camouflage awful news, might just be onto something.
Bank of England governor Andrew Bailey said told the BBC on Thursday that the coming downturn would be ‘unprecedented’ and that post lockdown recover would be limited due to consumers being ‘cautious of their own choice’.
He added that they would be unlikely to ‘re-engage fully and so it is really only next Summer that activity comes fully back’.
The picture is truly bleak with two quarters of contraction putting the UK into a technical recession, in the period to June the economy, the bank predicts, will shrink by 25%. For the year as a whole it will shrink by 14%, the biggest decline since the ONS began keeping records in 1949.
The Bank of England predicts the economy could rebound by15% in 2021, but growth won’t be back to pre-virus levels until the middle of the year.
Add to that a housing market at a standstill and a 30% fall in consumer spending and it is clear that the bad times are set to roll and keep on rolling, like a pebble that causes an avalanche.
The received wisdom expounded by Andrew Bailey that any pain will be a short-term blip is comforting; but unrealistic, something he probably knows only too well.
While the graphs and spreadsheets might tell an optimistic story, human experience has something entirely different to say. Consumers aren’t going, as Mr. Bailey puts it, going to be ‘cautious’, many of them are going to be downright petrified. In a few months’ time they might be flat broke too.
The official narrative is that although alarming in the short-term the pandemic is, in historical terms, a bump in the road of little lasting consequence. I don’t buy it; and neither should anyone else.
The speed with which it has swept around the globe throwing everything we understood about life up into the air in the process makes the COVID-19 pandemic one of the fault lines in human history. It is certainly as defining a moment for the twenty-first century as the outbreak of the two world wars was for the twentieth.
How we respond to it will shape our future as a nation and as a human species for decades to come. It is as impossible to imagine to world going back to its default setting in 2021 as it would have been for it to have done so in 1919 or 1946.
Everything has changed and we need a new settlement on a national and international level in recognition of that fact.
Every country needs to have a serious political conversation about how measures such as a universal basic income can be used to create a fairer society and a more sustainable economy. Wellbeing has to be as much a measure of success as a nations GDP.
Painful as the current crisis has been for people around the world it also represents a rare opportunity to change things for the better. One that progressives in all countries must seize with both hands.
If they don’t you can be sure that the promoters of an economic system that made the world we used to know into such a divided place will. What comes about as a result may be the stuff of nightmares.
This blog supports NHS staff during this national crisis, please consider giving a small donation by clicking on this link: https://donate.justgiving.com/donation-amount?uri=aHR0cHM6Ly9kb25hdGUtYXBpLmp1c3RnaXZpbmcuY29tL2FwaS9kb25hdGlvbnMvOTE4NzQ5MGU3YzJmNDBmZTg2ZTk3ODkzNWY4NzBjZTI=
Meanwhile back at the economic ranch the Bank of England let slip the prediction that the UK economy could shrink by 14% this year due to the pandemic. Anyone cynical enough to think that mixed messages have been used to partially camouflage awful news, might just be onto something.
Bank of England governor Andrew Bailey said told the BBC on Thursday that the coming downturn would be ‘unprecedented’ and that post lockdown recover would be limited due to consumers being ‘cautious of their own choice’.
He added that they would be unlikely to ‘re-engage fully and so it is really only next Summer that activity comes fully back’.
The picture is truly bleak with two quarters of contraction putting the UK into a technical recession, in the period to June the economy, the bank predicts, will shrink by 25%. For the year as a whole it will shrink by 14%, the biggest decline since the ONS began keeping records in 1949.
The Bank of England predicts the economy could rebound by15% in 2021, but growth won’t be back to pre-virus levels until the middle of the year.
Add to that a housing market at a standstill and a 30% fall in consumer spending and it is clear that the bad times are set to roll and keep on rolling, like a pebble that causes an avalanche.
The received wisdom expounded by Andrew Bailey that any pain will be a short-term blip is comforting; but unrealistic, something he probably knows only too well.
While the graphs and spreadsheets might tell an optimistic story, human experience has something entirely different to say. Consumers aren’t going, as Mr. Bailey puts it, going to be ‘cautious’, many of them are going to be downright petrified. In a few months’ time they might be flat broke too.
The official narrative is that although alarming in the short-term the pandemic is, in historical terms, a bump in the road of little lasting consequence. I don’t buy it; and neither should anyone else.
The speed with which it has swept around the globe throwing everything we understood about life up into the air in the process makes the COVID-19 pandemic one of the fault lines in human history. It is certainly as defining a moment for the twenty-first century as the outbreak of the two world wars was for the twentieth.
How we respond to it will shape our future as a nation and as a human species for decades to come. It is as impossible to imagine to world going back to its default setting in 2021 as it would have been for it to have done so in 1919 or 1946.
Everything has changed and we need a new settlement on a national and international level in recognition of that fact.
Every country needs to have a serious political conversation about how measures such as a universal basic income can be used to create a fairer society and a more sustainable economy. Wellbeing has to be as much a measure of success as a nations GDP.
Painful as the current crisis has been for people around the world it also represents a rare opportunity to change things for the better. One that progressives in all countries must seize with both hands.
If they don’t you can be sure that the promoters of an economic system that made the world we used to know into such a divided place will. What comes about as a result may be the stuff of nightmares.
This blog supports NHS staff during this national crisis, please consider giving a small donation by clicking on this link: https://donate.justgiving.com/donation-amount?uri=aHR0cHM6Ly9kb25hdGUtYXBpLmp1c3RnaXZpbmcuY29tL2FwaS9kb25hdGlvbnMvOTE4NzQ5MGU3YzJmNDBmZTg2ZTk3ODkzNWY4NzBjZTI=
Saturday, 2 May 2020
People Living in Deprived Communities Could be the Hidden Victims of the Pandemic.
After weeks of gloom there may be a small glimmer of light at the end of the tunnel as the UK passes through the peak of the pandemic. As it does so data from a charity working with vulnerable families and the Office for National Statistics has revealed a shocking disparity in death rates.
The message is as stark as it is simple; if you live in a deprived community your chances of dying from COVID-19 are more than twice that of someone living in a more affluent one.
You are also far more likely to suffer hardship as a result of the pandemic, largely because your life was already blighted by poverty long before the virus arrived in the UK.
The Trussell Trust, the charity which runs the majority of the UK’s food banks, has released figures showing that demand for its services went up by 81% in the first two weeks of the pandemic.
This has been driven by the more that 1.8 million people who have applied for benefits since the beginning of the lockdown, many of whom may need help from their local food bank at some point.
The charity welcomes government interventions including the roll out of the Job Retention Scheme and extra investment in Universal Credit. Despite this, a statement on their website says, ‘there is a limit to the number of people food banks can help and it shouldn’t be left to community charities and volunteers to pick up the pieces’.
The figures on increased food bank use come at the same time as data released by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) shows COVID-19 deaths in deprived communities in England are higher than in more affluent ones.
The data covering the period from 1st March to 17th April shows there were 20,283 deaths in England related to the virus, at a rate of 36.2 per 100,000 people.
In deprived areas of England, the death rate was 55.1, compared to 25.3 in more affluent areas. London had the highest mortality rate at 85.7 with the worst hit boroughs being Newham, Brent and Hackney. In deprived areas of Wales death rates were also high at 44.6.
Nick Stripe, head of health at the ONS told Reuters ‘people in more deprived areas have experienced COVID-19 mortality rates more than double those in less deprived areas’.
Speaking to the BBC shadow Health Secretary Jonathan Ashworth said the figures showed that the coronavirus thrives on inequality.
Javed Khan, chief executive of children’s charity Barnardo’s, also speaking to the BBC, said the ONS figures were ‘worrying, but unfortunately not surprising’. He added that people living in deprived communities were at risk of becoming the ‘forgotten victims of the pandemic, without intervention this crisis will be devastating for a whole generation’.
Jonathan Ashworth told the BBC that ‘ministers must target health inequalities with an overarching strategy to tackle the wider social determinants of ill health’
The Trussell Trust is also calling on the government to take action on poverty and health inequalities as the pandemic shows signs of beginning to recede. They have joined a coalition of other groups including the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, the Child Poverty Action Group and debt charity StepChange to make four key demands.
These are for an increase in the benefits paid to struggling families, and extended suspension of deductions to cover advanced payments to Universal Credit claimants, a lifting of the benefits cap and more support for local authorities as they struggle with a sharp decline in income.
Trussell Trust chief executive Emma Revie said ‘the last few weeks have shown we must come together to protect each other against the unexpected’. Adding ‘we need emergency measures to ensure people can make ends meet during this crisis’.
Alison Garnham of the Child Poverty Action Group said ‘raising the level of benefits for children would be the most effective way of getting support to families quickly’. Adding ‘it is our moral responsibility to make that investment because no child should be reliant on food packages’.
Helen Barnard of the Joseph Rowntree Foundation said it was ‘vital that our social security system can act as an anchor in tough times and keep people afloat when they need it most’.
As the pandemic begins, hopefully, to recede it leaves exposed in its wake problems that have been known but ignored during a decade of austerity politics. Being poor is bad for your health and may lead to an early death.
The pandemic has focused minds of priorities rather than peripherals, at least for the short term. It is vital that politicians take this opportunity to address the inequalities that cause harm to the most vulnerable members of our society.
The message is as stark as it is simple; if you live in a deprived community your chances of dying from COVID-19 are more than twice that of someone living in a more affluent one.
You are also far more likely to suffer hardship as a result of the pandemic, largely because your life was already blighted by poverty long before the virus arrived in the UK.
The Trussell Trust, the charity which runs the majority of the UK’s food banks, has released figures showing that demand for its services went up by 81% in the first two weeks of the pandemic.
This has been driven by the more that 1.8 million people who have applied for benefits since the beginning of the lockdown, many of whom may need help from their local food bank at some point.
The charity welcomes government interventions including the roll out of the Job Retention Scheme and extra investment in Universal Credit. Despite this, a statement on their website says, ‘there is a limit to the number of people food banks can help and it shouldn’t be left to community charities and volunteers to pick up the pieces’.
The figures on increased food bank use come at the same time as data released by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) shows COVID-19 deaths in deprived communities in England are higher than in more affluent ones.
The data covering the period from 1st March to 17th April shows there were 20,283 deaths in England related to the virus, at a rate of 36.2 per 100,000 people.
In deprived areas of England, the death rate was 55.1, compared to 25.3 in more affluent areas. London had the highest mortality rate at 85.7 with the worst hit boroughs being Newham, Brent and Hackney. In deprived areas of Wales death rates were also high at 44.6.
Nick Stripe, head of health at the ONS told Reuters ‘people in more deprived areas have experienced COVID-19 mortality rates more than double those in less deprived areas’.
Speaking to the BBC shadow Health Secretary Jonathan Ashworth said the figures showed that the coronavirus thrives on inequality.
Javed Khan, chief executive of children’s charity Barnardo’s, also speaking to the BBC, said the ONS figures were ‘worrying, but unfortunately not surprising’. He added that people living in deprived communities were at risk of becoming the ‘forgotten victims of the pandemic, without intervention this crisis will be devastating for a whole generation’.
Jonathan Ashworth told the BBC that ‘ministers must target health inequalities with an overarching strategy to tackle the wider social determinants of ill health’
The Trussell Trust is also calling on the government to take action on poverty and health inequalities as the pandemic shows signs of beginning to recede. They have joined a coalition of other groups including the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, the Child Poverty Action Group and debt charity StepChange to make four key demands.
These are for an increase in the benefits paid to struggling families, and extended suspension of deductions to cover advanced payments to Universal Credit claimants, a lifting of the benefits cap and more support for local authorities as they struggle with a sharp decline in income.
Trussell Trust chief executive Emma Revie said ‘the last few weeks have shown we must come together to protect each other against the unexpected’. Adding ‘we need emergency measures to ensure people can make ends meet during this crisis’.
Alison Garnham of the Child Poverty Action Group said ‘raising the level of benefits for children would be the most effective way of getting support to families quickly’. Adding ‘it is our moral responsibility to make that investment because no child should be reliant on food packages’.
Helen Barnard of the Joseph Rowntree Foundation said it was ‘vital that our social security system can act as an anchor in tough times and keep people afloat when they need it most’.
As the pandemic begins, hopefully, to recede it leaves exposed in its wake problems that have been known but ignored during a decade of austerity politics. Being poor is bad for your health and may lead to an early death.
The pandemic has focused minds of priorities rather than peripherals, at least for the short term. It is vital that politicians take this opportunity to address the inequalities that cause harm to the most vulnerable members of our society.
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