Northern England 'worst hit' by pandemic

The Northern Health Science Alliance has reported that the north has been hit harder than the rest of England during the coronavirus pandemic.

The report, which looks at the impact of the virus on the health and economic inequalities between the Northern Powerhouse and the rest of England, has found that the pandemic hit the north harder and more deeply and that mitigating measures must be put in place to stop inequalities rising further and faster.

The NHSA estimates the economic cost of the increased mortality in the North during the pandemic at £6.86 billion and the reductions in mental health in the region due to the pandemic at around £5 billion a year. Figures show austerity simultaneously put the region in a more vulnerable position by reducing health and wellbeing, and cost the UK around £2 billion a year in lost productivity, with over £16 billion lost since 2011.

Data used in the paper shows that an extra 57.7 more people per 100,000 died in the Northern Powerhouse than the rest of England between March and July. Furthermore, reductions in the core spending power of local authorities in the Northern Powerhouse by £1 per-head cost £3.17 per-head in lost productivity, equivalent to around a £2 billion loss in GDP per-year, or £16 billion between 2011 and 2018.

The report authors make a series of recommendations to stop further deteriorations in the level of inequalities. This includes: placing additional resource into the Test and Trace system in the Northern Powerhouse and deliver through local primary care, public health, NHS labs and local authority services to ensure full population coverage; targeting clinically vulnerable and deprived communities in the Northern Powerhouse in the first phase of the roll out of the coronavirus vaccine; and increasing child benefit and the child element of Universal Credit by £20 per week, extending provision of free childcare, removing the benefit cap and the two-child limit; and extending provision of free school meals - all reduce child poverty.

Professor Clare Bambra, Professor of Public Health at Newcastle University, said: “Our report highlights that we are not all in the pandemic together with the Northern regions being hardest hit. Health and wealth in the Northern Powerhouse lagged behind the rest of the country even before the Covid pandemic, and over the last year our significant regional inequalities have been exacerbated.

“We need to significantly ‘level up’ the country by providing immediate additional support to local authorities and devolved administrations in the North – and by investing further in public health prevention in the Northern Powerhouse. In this way, we can reduce the inequalities that the pandemic has highlighted and ensure that our regions are better equipped for building back better.”