Tackling UK ill health is vital to economic growth, says IPPR

Better health will save the UK government £18bn a year by the mid-2030s, the IPPR said. Photograph: Andriy Popov/Alamy

Tackling Britain’s growing ill-health crisis holds the key to increasing growth and the government needs to invest £15bn a year on a radical programme of reforms designed to improve wellbeing and national prosperity, a left-of-centre thinktank has said.

The Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) said the UK’s worsening health was affecting the supply of workers, worsening productivity, holding back pay, damaging the public finances and adding to regional inequality.