Press release: NHS Confederation says a personalised NHS should reach out to the most excluded

26 Sep 2007

Moves to create a personalised NHS must start with the most excluded and work to tackle health inequality, says the NHS Confederation today in a new report called 'In sickness and in health'.

Inequality in health is the starkest challenge facing Britain today and many measures are getting steadily worse:

• Children from poor backgrounds are one and a half times as likely to die during infancy as children from better off families
•  Babies in the West Midlands are 70 per cent more likely to die than those in the South East
•  People from black and minority ethnic groups are up to six times more likely to develop diabetes
•  Manchester men have a life expectance of 72.5 years, 10 years less than men in Kensington and Chelsea

The causes of inequality are complex with poverty, employment and housing playing a major part. Solutions will require a broad coalition of action that will go well beyond the NHS. However, there are areas where the NHS can play an important role in reducing inequalities. As Gordon Brown defines a new personalised and accessible service tailored for the individual, we are clear that the focus must be on the most excluded. There are three action points we must take now:

1) Find the missing people: It is estimated that there are millions of people who are not accessing the services they need at the time they need it. Investing in finding those people now must be the first priority

2) Improve access to services: It is at the early stages of disease that people from poorer backgrounds are failing to access services. We must change the incentives in the NHS to serve them better. Three first steps would be to:

•  Remove the minimum income guarantee which prevents equitable distribution of resources
•  Change the formula for paying GPs to ensure practices in deprived areas don't lose out
•  Design local services that reach out to the community and don't expect the community to come to the service

3) Use the NHS as a corporate citizen: 1.3 million people work for the NHS - we must use that power to make change happen locally.

Dr Gill Morgan, Chief Executive of the NHS Confederation said:

"Growing health inequalities are the scourge of a civilised society. As we work with government to design more personalised services, our members want to ensure new policies reach out to the millions of people not accessing services they need.

"Our expectations for infant mortality rates and life expectancy define the kind of society we are trying to create and we must take action now to stop the gap between rich and poor widening further.

"Our members across the country are taking bold and innovative steps to find and treat the people who have been excluded for so long. We must spread that good practice and use the increasingly sophisticated social marketing technology to seek out people who are at risk."

Notes for editors

The NHS Confederation represents more than 95% of the organisations that make up the NHS. Its members include the majority of NHS acute trusts, ambulance trusts, foundation trusts, mental health trusts, primary care trusts, special health authorities and strategic health authorities in England; trusts and local health boards in Wales; and health and social service trusts and boards in Northern Ireland.

Contact details

Contact Niall Smith on 020 7074 3304 or 077 6777 0309.  For out of hours media enquiries, please call the Duty Press Officer on 07880 500726.

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