The UK’s level of economic inactivity due to sickness could reach 4.3m by the end of this parliament, with an “unthinkable human and economic cost”, a health report has warned.
A cross-party commission on health and prosperity, led by the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR), has published its findings on the future of Britain’s health policy.
Experts including Greater Manchester mayor Andy Burnham and former Tory health minister Lord James Bethell found the UK’s health crisis is linked to our faltering economy.
It comes just days after Lord Ara Darzi – who co-led the IPPR process – published his own review of the NHS which saw Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer warn it must “reform or die”.
The IPPR’s commission argues a generational rethink of health improvements could solve many of Britain’s urgent economic challenges, including low growth and productivity.
It found there are some 2.8m people off work sick today, up by 900,000 on pre-pandemic levels, but that this figure could soar to 4.3m by the end of this parliament in 2029.
And those 900,000 missing workers equate to up to £5bn in lost tax receipts in 2024 – equivalent to almost a quarter of the Chancellor’s “£22bn black hole” in the public purse.
Better health, the report suggests, is Britain’s greatest untapped path to prosperity, and boosting prevention and longevity should be a top focus for driving economic growth.
Health secretary Wes Streeting has backed the enquiry, which lasted almost three years, and said he wanted to make the Department for Health “a department for economic growth”.
He added: “We won’t build a healthy economy without a healthy society.”
And Chris Thomas, head of the IPPR’s commission, highlighted the UK’s “history of bold action on health crises” from Victorian infectious diseases to the post-war creation of the NHS.
“In 2024, we face a health crisis just as pronounced – with unthinkable human and economic cost,” he said. “Founding a health creation system is a way to fundamentally reimagine health policy – fit for the 21st century.”
Recommendations include an ‘oven-ready’ policy programme, including on children’s health, industrial strategy, community infrastructure, workforce health and employment support.
It also argues for taxes on so-called health polluters, such as tobacco, alcohol and junk food firms; new neighbourhood health centres; and the creation of a new ‘health index’ like GDP.
Lord Darzi described the enquiry as “among the first to identify rising sickness as a major post-pandemic fiscal challenge” and said the report offers a “ready-made policy vision”.
While co-chairwoman Dame Sally Davies, former chief medical officer, added: “I have long argued better health is Britain’s greatest untapped resource for happiness, economic growth and national prosperity.
“A government that wants to deliver growth needs to take note.”