Economic inactivity due to sickness could soar to 4.3 million in the UK by the end of this parliament, up from 2.8 million today, a cross-party commission has warned.
The Institute for Public Policy Research’s Commission on Health and Prosperity delivered the stark message as it concluded its three-year enquiry into the link between the nation’s health and the economy.
Chaired by surgeon Lord Ara Darzi and former chief medical officer for England Professor Dame Sally Davies, its final report found that around 900,000 extra people were missing from work at the end of 2023 because of sickness and that this number could rise steeply if current trends continue.
The analysis suggested the findings could mean around £5bn in lost tax receipts this year, while an improvement in the health of the nation could save the NHS £18bn annually by the mid-2030s.
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Released a week after Lord Darzi’s government-commissioned review into the state of the NHS, the study showed better health could solve several economic challenges currently facing Britain, such as low growth and productivity.
He said: “Our Commission was among the first to identify the rising sickness as a major and immediate post-pandemic fiscal challenge. Now, as the government sets up its health mission, our final report provides a ready-made policy vision for a new approach to public health.”
The report also indicated that some jobs have seen higher rates of sickness-related in activity than others, including caring, service and leisure positions, as well as manual labour work. It also noted that these rates are highest among working-age people in Northern Ireland, the North East and Wales.
Dame Sally Davies added: “I have long argued that better health is Britain’s greatest, untapped resource for happiness, economic growth and national prosperity. This commission has now provided the irrefutable evidence that this is true. A government that wants to deliver growth, sustainable public services and fairness throughout Britain needs to take note.”
The overreaching message among the commission’s recommendations is to create a “proactive 21st-century health creation system”, which works in parallel to the NHS service and that moves “beyond only intervening when people get sick”.
Its overall goal is to increase healthy life expectancy by 10 years by 2055 and to halve regional health inequalities.
The commission sets out a programme to do this, which includes giving people on health or disability benefits a ‘right to try’ work without putting their welfare status or award level at risk. It believes this should be available to everyone with a long-term condition or disability and last for months, regardless of what other health benefit reforms take place.
Other recommended measures include taxing health polluters, establishing “Health and Prosperity Improvement (HAPI) zones”, which are modelled on Clean Air Zones, introducing a new ‘neighbourhood health centre’ in every part of the country and creating a new health index, which would provide a snapshot of how the nation’s health is changing in a similar way that GDP measures the monetary value of final goods and services.
Lord James Bethell, former health minister and commissioner, said: “It’s time for a new health policy where we all play our part – businesses, employers, investors, individuals, communities and families alike.”
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