UK HEALTH  WORSE UNDER NEW LABOUR, SAYS NEW REPORT
ON EVE OF EU PRESIDENCY HEALTH INEQUALITIES SUMMIT

On the day that the UK government, as part of its EU Presidency, hosts a two day
Health Inequalities Summit conference in London, a new report claims that health
inequalities have deteriorated as a direct result of government policies.

‘Doing better but feeling worse’ is how UK Health Watch 2005 - an 'alternative
UK health report' from the Politics of Health Group - describes health in the
UK in 2005. ‘Although average life expectancy in the UK continues to increase,
the inequalities between rich and poor people, and the problems faced by
socially excluded groups,  have got steadily worse under New Labour. This is
confirmed by the Government’s own statistics’, says Dr Alex Scott-Samuel, joint
editor of the report and Joint Chair of the Politics of Health Group.

The report – which is published online and is free to download – presents a wide
range of articles on what it calls 'the experience of health in an unequal
society'. Some articles are by established experts, like Professors Richard
Wilkinson, Peter Townsend, Priscilla Alderson, John Appleby and Dennis Raphael,
others by activists like the 'McLibel Two' who came out on top in the recent
libel case brought by McDonalds.

An overall theme of the report is the need for the Government to 'refocus
upstream' - to go beyond the common focus on diseases and lifestyles, and to
address the social and political influences that are responsible for ill-health
and inequality. Most of the report’s articles identify economic factors like
poverty and income inequality, together with social influences like unequal
opportunities and discrimination, as the upstream factors requiring urgent
preventive action.

UK Health Watch 2005 doesn't hesitate to offer prescriptions for the many ills
it identifies. These range through diverse proposals such as increasing
employee ownership of private companies; respecting the human rights of  young
people; placing sex education in the core national curriculum; and giving more
emphasis to expressing emotions and less to displaying aggression in the way we
bring up our children.

UK Health Watch 2005 is the UK's contribution to Global Health Watch - an
alternative world health report launched by the People's Health Movement in
July 2005.


Notes to editors



1	 ‘UK Health Watch 2005 - the experience of health in an unequal society’ by
the Politics of Health Group, can be downloaded at www.pohg.org.uk

2	The Politics of Health Group (www.pohg.org.uk) campaigns for the social,
economic and environmental conditions in which the health of all people can
thrive, and against the market-oriented political and economic decisions that
are currently being taken nationally and across the world, and the
inequalities, discrimination and poor health they create

3	The Global Health Watch report (www.ghwatch.org) was launched in July    2005
by the People's Health Movement at the 2nd People's Health Assembly in Cuenca,
Ecuador

4	Information on the EU Summit can be found at
www.regteam.com/healthinequalitiessummit

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