Blog: Let’s close the North-South health gap

At the Innovation Agency we have a mission to help people live longer, healthier lives. 

This means preventing them from becoming ill, or if they become ill, ensuring that they can live with health conditions in a way that helps them to have a full, meaningful life. 

The NHSA report ‘Health for Wealth’ outlines how in the North we have a life expectancy two years lower than in the rest of the country.  It outlines how, in the North, if you have a long term condition, you are 39 per cent more likely to lose your job than those with a long term condition living in the rest of England.  If you are one of the lucky ones who manage to get back to work, your wages will be 66 per cent lower than a similar individual returning in the rest of England.*

We need to change these facts.

At the Innovation Agency, we have funded and supported a wide range of progammes to support longer healthier lives including:

• tools and training of health and care workers to prevent strokes
• a Health Coaching programme that supports health care professionals to work with patients to give them confidence and consider a number of solutions for recovery
• the ESCAPE-pain programme to support people with musculoskeletal problems to improve their mobility and wellbeing
• a service providing chemo at home and at work

We’ll shortly be rolling out a programme to pinpoint and correct medication for those at risk of prescribing errors and we have supported partners to identify those at risk of fractures and osteoporosis and treat them before this becomes a reality.

Working with our health and care system partners we are bringing together various sources of intelligence to systematically deliver personalised care.

Our role is to join up the North West Coast system so that we work with our economic growth partners, ie Local Enterprise Partnerships and local authorities; with our universities; and with health and political leaders to change the stark health facts about living in the North.

We want to close the productivity gap between the North and the rest of England.  Please join us in this mission.

*Health for Wealth - Building a Healthier Northern Powerhouse for UK Productivity