Battling health and wealth inequalities 3 - VOLUME THREE

If we are to improve the health of the nation, the most significant and crucial agent is not central government but the properly sized regional authority, with NHS services embedded in the provision of broader community services that determine the health of the population. [...] 30 31 How communities are being degraded SECTION 5 32 ENGLISH COMMUNITIES ARE BEING DEGR ADED A S A RESULT OF LOC AL GOVERNMENT MUDDLE AND THE OVER- CENTR ALISATION OF POWER IN WESTMINSTER AND WHITEHALL The centralisation of power and money in London and the south east has undermined much of the dynamism of regions, and the fabric of many places and communities outside the south-east. [...] The bill for the north-east would be a staggering £1m per week,’ said the advert, followed by the caption: ‘More doctors, not politicians.’ The reality was the reverse, as the plan envisaged that costs and politicians would be cut in the highly expensive ‘bubble’ of Westminster and Whitehall, and the north east would be in control of its own destiny and would have avoided the inequalities that hav. [...] The failure of official policy to reduce regional inequalities reflects the limited resources devoted to it relative to the 49 underlying scale of these inequalities, the opposing influence of other areas of public policy that have tended to favour more prosperous regions, and a series of rather partial understandings of the nature of the regional problem. [...] The pendulum seems to be swinging back to the days of the strategic health authorities when seven new regions were established in 2018: London, the South East, the South West, the North West, the North East and Yorkshire, the Midlands, and the East of England.