Rt Hon Nick Brown Rt Hon Nick Brown
I met with Hannah Davies, Head of External Affairs at the Northern Health Science Alliance (NHSA), to discuss the impact of cuts to public health on the North East’s health and productivity. The NHSA includes eight Universities and covers an area of 15 million people. It provides one point of access to the health science system across the North of England. A recent report by the NHSA into the link between public health and productivity contained a number of interesting findings. There currently exists both a health and productivity gap between the North and the South. Life expectancy is two years lower on average in the North, while there is a £4 productivity gap between the North and the rest of England. The NHSA report found that increasing the NHS budget by 10% in the North would decrease economic inactivity by 3 percentage points – reducing the £4 productivity gap by £1.20 and boosting the economy of both the region and the country as a whole I find the key findings of the report convincing and will continue to support the work of the NHSA where I can.