Boosting health can prop up the economy
Britain has a sickness problem. Since 2020, economic inactivity in the UK has risen by 900,000, and now stands at 2.8 million people with 85 per cent of this increase down to those who are not working due to long-term sickness.
Until the start of the covid pandemic, economic inactivity rates in this country, whilst high, were in step with similar countries, yet since then we’ve become an outlier. On average EU countries have seen economic inactivity fall by more than 2 per cent; the UK’s has risen by more than 1 per cent.
It does not take a mathematician to work out this is impacting the economy. Yet if the trend could be reversed, our estimates suggest a potential £35 billion dividend to taxpayers over five years and that’s just from halving the post-covid inactivity increase.
For the NHS this could reap multiple benefits. If targeted preventative health interventions help people find or stay in work, they also shore up the case to invest in health services. And as people of working age on average become even less well when they are not in employment, helping people with health conditions to access jobs could also reduce further demand on services.
We need to concentrate resources on the conditions that seem to be the main reason for inactivity, namely mental health in children and young people, and musculo-skeletal conditions, and the interplay between mental and physical health.
The opportunities presented by tackling economic inactivity are huge. We cannot take the gamble of doing nothing.
Matthew Taylor is chief executive of the NHS Confederation. You can follow Matthew on X @ConfedMatthew
This article first appeared in the New Statesman, in print on 25 October 2024 and online on 30 October 2024. Wes Streeting: how should government tackle health inequalities?
