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