The King’s Fund recently published Equity and endurance: how can we tackle health inequalities this time? The case for tackling health inequalities is clear and overwhelming, it argues. Yet attempts to do so in recent decades have had mixed success, and none have translated into the enduring focus on addressing health inequalities that is needed.
The authors propose three fundamental realities that have to be hard-wired into the implementation of any approach to addressing health inequalities:
- Endurance: inequality reduction needs a long-term programme that takes it beyond planning cycles, political attention spans and leadership tenure.
- Partnership: tackling inequalities is a multi-agency effort. It cannot be achieved by one part of the system acting alone.
- Disruption: to make intervening in care upstream a mainstream model not an add-on project.
Inequalities in MSK health is a priority for ARMA. Following our roundtable last year, we have several things planned for 2022, so look out for more resources from us. This will begin in the next few weeks with a resource page on our website. Make sure you are subscribed to this newsletter to be kept up to date.
Meanwhile, for a general health equality reading list, see this one from the Kings Fund.