Everybody knows about the Gender Pay Gap – it’s well publicised and very much in the public domain for discussion – and too right! – How is this even still an issue? It it is quite simply wrong that women should earn less than men, any time, any place, end of discussion.
Well the same applies to the North-South Health Gap. What I find particularly irksome about this issue, is that people tend to roll their eyes and say that it’s all playing politics. No! No it isn’t. This is not about politics. This is about Social Justice!
It has been well documented that for over 40 years, the health of the people of the North of England has been significantly worse than that of people in the South and our life expectancy is worse. It is a complex issue and is highly linked to deprivation and poor housing conditions in the urban areas. The gap was narrowed during the early part of this century, but the health reforms made to the NHS have seen massive cuts to public health and social care budgets, disproportionately affecting the North. To make matters worse, the funding formula that is used by the Department of Health to determine how and where money should be spent, deliberately favours the rich and the well and and that means that head for head of population, the North does considerably worse than the South in terms of how much resource is made available. This is even true of how many staff are given proportionally to the North compared to the South. This is just ludicrous and is simply not fair. How can it make any sense at all to spend more money in areas where the population is more healthy and people have a significantly better overall life expectancy already? Are we to believe that Southerners are more important than Northerners, just as the pay gap would imply that men are more important than women?
The savings being asked of the Northern STPs (Sustainability and Transformation Plans) at a time in which we are already struggling with the huge cuts previously mentioned, and starting from a significant deficit in terms of our health outcomes, is meaning that the health and wellbeing of the people of the North will suffer further. I am not suggesting that we can not work more efficiently and collaboratively within the public services, nor am I suggesting that the people of the North do not need to take greater responsibility for our own health (although it is well known, that when you are more deprived, you are less likely to have the mental wellbeing to make positive choices about your own health). What I am saying is this: whatever the budget allocations may be; let them be fair!
Yes, it is time for us to tackle the health problems across the North, and we will do so together as the people. Maybe we don’t have carte blanche any more and have to reassess what we think might be available in terms of health care provision. But what we would like is to be able to make this journey by starting on a basis of equality with the South. No more North-South divide. No more unfair funding calculations. No more political games. Social-Health Justice for all, now.
For further information, you can read:
https://academic.oup.com/jpubhealth/article/37/1/34/1556643/Grim-up-North-or-Northern-grit-Recessions-and-the
https://www.kingsfund.org.uk/sites/files/kf/field/field_publication_file/inequalities-in-life-expectancy-kings-fund-aug15.pdf#page2
http://councilportal.cumbria.gov.uk/documents/s50047/STP%20April%20submission%20for%20Lancashire%20and%20South%20Cumbria.pdf?nobdr=2
In my last blog, I talked about the exponential potential of what could be possible if clinicians worked together in a more collaborative way. However, far more can be achieved if we work together in and with our communities to create a social movement together around being more healthy and well. I’ve talked previously about the “battle royale” that occurred between Béchamp and Pasteur over whether we should promote health or fight disease. The answer is, of course, that we need to do both, but the clinical community is not equipped with the resource or power to do it alone.
crises we now face are too much for us to do anything about. We are in the midst of a battle, which we are currently losing and it is time to gird our loins for a turning of the tide. Here in Morecambe Bay, we have started a conversation, not just among the Clinical Community but with the wider population about how we might become the healthiest place in the UK. Yes, we mean this in a very holistic way, but there are also some specific foci we have so we can together reverse some of the appalling health statistics we are facing.
I suggest that within a generation, if we wanted to, we could render Type 2 Diabetes a rare diagnosis. We can do this through encouraging far more healthy lifestyles in our children and young people now, like running a mile a day and learning to eat food that doesn’t actually harm them! I believe we could significantly reduce the need for so many people to be taking medication for hypertension and diabetes now, prevent many strokes and heart attacks, by being violent towards these conditions with major changes in lifestyle, though diet and exercise, rather than the prescription of drugs, using coaching, peer support and local champions to give psychological motivation and encouragement. We are beginning to have some excellent discussions and develop some exciting plans around this.
pull themselves back from the brink of a lifetime of medication and we should use all medication reviews as a chance to help people adopt lifestyles that might reverse the need for such drugs. In the process, we would also significantly reverse our number of cancer diagnoses – many of which are linked to our lifestyle choices. We simply can’t afford for our current and failing approach to continue. We need to be braver together! And this means the NHS must be willing to partner in new ways, not only with local people, but also with businesses like the major supermarkets to help reverse our current direction towards the abyss, in which there is no longer a healthcare system that serves the needs of everyone, no matter where they come from or how much they do or don’t earn.
We can absolutely do this!! It’s going to take some serious resolve and we’re going to have to withstand the fear and pressure of some pretty powerful lobbies, like the sugar, alcohol, tobacco and pharmaceutical giants, and perhaps even the government itself, but it is time for us to do the impossible. With love, hope and faith, we can do this! Yes we need to focus on schools and work places. Yes, we need to partner with organisations we’ve never worked with before. Yes, we need a far more effective media strategy and yes, we need to allow clinicians to work very differently. But we cannot do nothing. So let’s try something a whole lot more radical. That’s what we’re going for in Morecambe Bay – not just better care together, but better health together – you can watch and wait, and see if we sink or swim, or you can join us!![forgive[1].jpg](http://reimagininghealth.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/forgive1.jpg?w=293)
Many of us feel that forgiveness is a good idea or it is something we would like to do, but when it comes to actually forgiving someone, it can be hard to know how to go about it. In my last vlog I talked about the extraordinary and healing power of forgiveness and how it helps us to be more healthy and well. In this vlog, I talk through a straight-forward process that helps us to actually be forgiving.
There are many times when people come to see me, as a GP, and I cannot find a physical cause for their pain. There are various other conditions when people have what we call “medically unexplained symptoms”. For others, they can get stuck in a rut with their mental health and feel unable to get out of it. In the west, we are not as comfortable as we might be in dealing with the concept of spiritual health. Our spirit, the true essence of who we are, can also suffer damage and ill health, which in turn can lead to physical and psychological manifestations of that same pain. One of the things I have seen time and again as one contributing factor is when someone is finding it difficult to forgive a past hurt. In this vlog I talk about the great power of forgiveness in helping us to be more well. In the one after this, I will talk about how we can actually go about forgiving someone who has hurt us.
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