NHS ‘better equipped’ to tackle local health inequalities, says DoH

A new internet application, which will allow local trusts to monitor and respond to trends in infant mortality and life expectancy to tackle health inequalities, has been launched by Public Health Minister, Gillian Merron.

Gillian Merron was speaking at the ‘Marmot and The Third Sector’ conference which was an opportunity for delegates to respond to the Marmot review - entitled ‘Fair Society, Healthy Lives’ - which identified key areas for future action in health inequalities.

The event aims to raise awareness among the Third Sector of the health inequalities challenge and provide a forum to develop understanding of their role in addressing health inequalities and how the Marmot Report can support their work.

The new version of the Health Inequalities Intervention Toolkit is an online resource which draws together key data and modelling on health indicators. The DoH has said that the toolkit enables those areas with the worst health and deprivation – the Spearhead areas - to achieve both the life expectancy and infant mortality objectives within the national health inequalities target.

The newly announced infant mortality tool will allow the NHS and partners to see the risk factors that are driving their infant mortality rates and help them to plan how best to reduce them.

In addition, the toolkit allows Spearhead areas to see what factors are driving low life expectancy in their area and identifies the action needed to address this:

• helping people who want to give up smoking
• treating people with high blood pressure, or high cholesterol in people without diagnosed cardiovascular disease
• reducing infant mortality
• controlling high blood sugar

Speaking at the conference Gillian Merron said:

'Life expectancy is the highest it has ever been and infant mortality is at an all time low, but more needs to be done to narrow the gap between Spearhead areas and the rest of England.

'Everybody should have an equal chance at good health and that is why the Government is working across the community and the Third Sector to address the wider causes of health inequalities.

'To further support local areas, we are launching a revised, updated and improved version of the Health Inequalities Intervention Toolkit, developed in partnership with the Association of Public Health Observatories.'