Newcastle has been ranked as the 12th "least healthy" area of England - and experts have emphasised the situation is likely to have worsened, because the study is based on research predating the worrying impact the Covid-19 pandemic has had on health inequalities.
The ranking is according to the Office for National Statistics' (ONS) Health Index, which measures a number of factors such as access to health services, living conditions and behavioural risk factors and comes up with a score for each local authority area. The North East as a whole was also the region which ranked worst in the UK.
In response, Newcastle City Council' s interim Director of Public Health Lorna Smith said the council was doing "as much as we possibly can" but called for "significant investment" from central Government to help tackle the issue. Siobhan O'Neil - chief executive of the Healthwatch Newcastle and Healthwatch Gateshead organisations which work to represent patient voices in the area - also pointed to an "awful lot of factors" influencing poor health in the city and said services must listen to what people using them tell them.
