The three-year inquiry of the IPPR's cross-party Commission on Health and Prosperity, chaired by Lord Ara Darzi and Professor Dame Sally Davies, offers policies to add 10 years to healthy life expectancy by 2055 and halve regional health inequalities.
Lord Darzi said: ‘Our Commission was among the first to identify the rising sickness as a major and immediate post-pandemic fiscal challenge. Now, as the Government sets up its health mission, our final report provides a ready made policy vision for a new approach to public health.'
Proposals include:
- taxing health polluters, including tobacco, alcohol and unhealthy food companies to raise over £10bn per year by the end of the Parliament
- establishing ‘Health and Prosperity Improvement (HAPI) zones' in the most health-deprived areas
- a right for people in receipt of benefits to ‘try' work with no risk to welfare status or award level
- a new ‘neighbourhood health centre' in every part of the country
- a new health index to provide a snapshot of how the nation's health is changing
- a future generation health plan including universal free school meals, restoration of Sure Start and an end to the Two Child Limit.
A Department of Health and Social Care spokesperson said: ‘The Darzi report found that children are less healthy than they were a decade ago, and that adults are also falling ill earlier in life today. This Government will shift the focus of the NHS from just treating sickness to preventing it in the first place.
‘You can't build a healthy economy without a healthy society - by cutting waiting lists and taking acting on things like junk food ads targeted at children, we will get Britain back to health and back to work.'
Cllr David Fothergill, chairman of the Local Government Association's Community Wellbeing Board, said: ‘To effectively reduce pressure on healthcare systems, improve health outcomes, and address inequalities, it is essential to engage local government in shaping the forthcoming 10-year health plan.
‘In next month's Autumn Budget, reforming social care and increasing investment in local government services, including the public health grant, will be vital in ensuring a healthier population and a sustainable NHS.'
