A new report has exposed how the pandemic has seen 400,000 people leave work due to ill-health and Long Covid - and now leading regional figures have joined a new commission investigating how health and our economy interact as they seek to push the Government to respond to "burning health inequalities".
Led by the former chief medical officer Dame Sally Davies and surgeon Lord Ara Darzi, the cross-party commission set up by think-tank IPPR will also feature Dr Jonathan Pearson-Stuttard from the Northumbria Healthcare NHS Trust, Newcastle University 's Professor Clare Bambra and Mayor of Greater Manchester Andy Burnham.
The think-tank's report also highlights how people living in economically deprived areas - often in the North - can expect on average to be in ill-health by their late 50s. That's about five years earlier than the average, and 12 years before some of the healthiest areas of the UK like Wokingham in Berkshire. There healthy life expectancy is over 70.
