The Government needs to channel funding to the NHS in deprived areas and follow-through on Levelling Up to help fight a "twindemic", top academics in Newcastle have warned.
On the back of research highlighting again how deaths due to Covid have disproportionately hit deprived areas - both in the UK and around the world - Dr Vic McGowan and Prof Clare Bambra from Newcastle University have warned that those in power here need to learn lessons ahead of a potentially devastating winter. This comes as top medics warn of the risk of a worse-than-usual flu season combining with a Covid resurgence.
This scenario - the so-called "twindemic" - could leave the NHS under extreme pressure, and this is likely to again hit deprived areas including in the North East worse than elsewhere. Prof Bambra highlighted how the prevalence of health issues like diabetes, COPD and heart disease in our region - and the near 40% of children growing up in poverty here - mean we're more vulnerable than elsewhere to health crises.
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Lead author on the study, Dr McGowan said: "Our review provides clear evidence that those living in the most deprived communities shouldered the greatest burden from Covid-19. The levelling-up agenda in the UK has the potential to reduce inequalities between areas of high and low deprivation, this would go some way to preventing inequalities arising in future pandemics."
Prof Bambra said the research confirmed what had been seen in the UK was a global phenomenon. She said: "We don't have a simple answer for why this is and there are multiple aspects to it - but for example we think some of this is to do with people having different levels of exposure to the virus."
Prof Bambra said that when it came to health outcomes - both in the context of Covid-19 and more generally - poverty played a key role. "Much of this has to do with how poverty undermines people's immune systems and their health. The most crucial impact is that we have much higher rates of the clinical risk factors - things like diabetes, COPD and heart disease."
Citing the shockingly high rates of child poverty in the North East, Prof Bambra added: "We did this study before the cost-of-living crisis and I really am despairing about what we are facing in the North East. When you are looking at how to reduce inequalities and health inequalities, what you have to look at is reducing poverty."
She added that the Government needed to act to target resources at areas of high deprivation. "Our research shows that Covid-19 is an unequal pandemic - people in more deprived communities, globally and in the UK, have been most impacted with higher deaths," she said. "As we face a possible twindemic of flu and Covid-19 this winter in England, additional support for the NHS in those parts of the country most likely to be adversely impacted should be considered as a matter of urgency."
Earlier this summer, local health leaders said in a shocking report that public health in the North East was "way behind" the rest of the UK - while shocking statistics show that Covid-19 hit life expectancy in the North East worst than any other area. Even before Covid, Newcastle was among the least healthy 4% of areas in the UK, according to the Office for National Statistics.
The Department of Health and Social Care was contacted for comment. In October, it announced that Newcastle and Gateshead councils were among 13 to share £50m for research into local factors affection health. This was framed as part of the Government's "plan for patients". Money has also been promised to help NHS services with "resilience" over the winter.
Then-health minister Robert Jenrick, said last month: "The pandemic shone a light on the stark health inequalities that exist across the country – we are committed to levelling up the health of the nation."
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