Tackling Health Inequalities in East Cheshire

A report from the Increasing Equalities Commission was discussed at the Cheshire East Health & Wellbeing Board meeting on 22 March 2022.

The Labour-led administration at Cheshire East Council formed the ‘Increasing Equality Commission’ to address health inequalities and this commission has focussed its work on Crewe. The wider determinants of ill-health, such as housing, access to open spaces, good community relations and employment have more of an impact on population health than NHS care. So the commission has looked at skills development, early life interventions, employment and work, transport and active travel, ill health prevention and resilient communities. Although some work such as the Cleaner Crewe project has already made a difference in cleaning alleyways and improving community pride, the commission will set out actions that will make a difference over the nest 5-10 years.

The shocking reality that those living in deprived areas have shorter and less healthy lives was set out in the Marmot Review published in 2010. Professor Marmot’s review showed that health inequalities are largely preventable. Not only is there a strong social justice case for addressing health inequalities, there is also a pressing economic case due to lost taxes, welfare payments and costs to the NHS. However, with the coalition government taking power later in 2010, Marmot’s proposals were only implemented in a limited way.

In 2020 an update of the Marmot review showed that inequalities had INCREASED over the previous decade. A further update in December 2020 showed that covid had further widened the gap.

In Cheshire East, health inequalities are graphically shown in a chart known as the Tartan Rug I which 46 health outcomes are shown for each ward in Cheshire East with a green box if the measure is better than the national average and red if it is below the national average. There is a red bar through the Tartan Rug showing that the Crewe wards are below average on nearly every health indicator. An update of the Tartan Rug shows little change in the last decade.

The strong links between mental and physical health should also be noted. One positive to come out of the pandemic is that the number of people getting out to walk in green spaces has increased – this helps both mental and physical health.

The councillors at the meeting were challenged to make more people aware of the social determinants of health and what can do done to improve health equalities.

The papers can be found at:

Agenda for Cheshire East Health and Wellbeing Board on Tuesday, 22nd March, 2022, 2.00 pm | Cheshire East Council

The tartan rug is available at:

Appendix A- Ward profile tartan rug CEC Feb21.pdf (cheshireeast.gov.uk)