A new report says inequality is costing the NHS millions of pounds a year [Image: Daniel Atkin/Alamy Stock Photo/Alamy Stock Photo].

We know that Conservative policies have caused a regression in the nation’s health, generally.

People have less cash, which means they are less able to feed themselves properly, leading to malnutrition.

This, in turn, has led to the return of the so-called ‘Victorian’ diseases – gout, TB, measles, scurvy, rickets and whooping cough. The Conservatives are undoubtedly delighted by this, as they have long desired a return to Victorian-era values.

Employment policies mean people are finding it extremely hard to earn more cash, meaning not only are they unable to feed themselves properly, but they also increased levels of stress due to the odds being stacked against them.

And the increasingly unreasonable demands of employers – emboldened by the government – mean people are running themselves ragged simply trying to keep their jobs.

I have elaborated on the ways this is harmful to the economy in several articles over the past few years.

Those of us who are unemployed, in low-paying or in part-time employment are placed under increasing pressure to get work or increase our working hours and pay, by the benefit system. This also attacks our mental and physical health.

And those of us who are physically unable to get a job because of long-term illness, or who need particular aids to keep a job, because of disability, are also placed under huge pressures that adversely affect our health.

These are all consequences of Conservative government policy that affect the poor, rather than the rich – and all impact on our health in a hugely harmful way.

Yet the Conservative government insists it wants to improve our health. Clearly, that is a lie.

If it wasn’t, the Conservatives would not have opened up our National Health Service to private, profit-making corporations who take public money and put it straight into their bank accounts as profit, without it being used to improve the health of a single person.

They would not have deprived the health service of the funding it really needs, making it vulnerable to crisis after crisis that actually harms its ability to help people. We’re currently enduring the latest winter crisis, with a huge strain being placed on hospital accident and emergency departments.

There is a better way.

It’s simple: Encourage employers to provide secure, well-paid jobs that allow people to buy healthy, nutritious food. Happy employees produce better products and more profits, making it possible to hire more employees at superior rates.

The increase in high-quality jobs would mean an increase in tax revenue, easing the pressure on the benefit system, meaning there would be no reason for the extra pressures under which the current system places them and halting the relentless grind that is so harmful to their health.

The end result is less pressure on the health service, meaning it would no longer be over-stretched and may be more able to cope – not only with normal running issues but even with the crises that arise from time to time.

Everybody wins – even the profiteers, because they’ll be making more money.

Of course, every plan is fine until it is put into action and runs into the unexpected, but that’s why the government has so many clever employees in the civil service, along with so many clever advisors in think tanks and Universities.

So you see: The problems here are entirely manufactured by and on behalf of the Conservative Government of the United Kingdom – deliberately.

The Tories want you to be ill-fed, stressed, sick, mentally ill, and unable to access adequate healthcare.

It is a deliberate policy of theirs, although probably not one that you’ll ever see headlined in their manifesto.

But we must judge people on their actions, and the results of those actions, rather than on their words.

Children from poor families are far more likely to end up in hospital A&E departments or need emergency treatment for conditions such as asthma and diabetes, according to shocking figures revealing the consequences of poverty in Britain.

In findings that senior doctors said showed the “devastating impact” of deprivation on child health, the nation’s poorest teenagers were found to be almost 70 per cent more likely to appear in A&E than their less deprived counterparts.

A comprehensive study that examined hundreds of thousands of patient records found inequalities between children from the poorest and richest families were costing the NHS hundreds of millions a year and contributing to pressures on the health system.

Across the 10 most common conditions leading to unplanned hospital visits, the rates of admission were consistently highest among children and young people from the most deprived areas. The study, by the Nuffield Trust, found inequalities in some areas of child health had increased over the last decade in England, despite advances in care.

Source: Huge health gap revealed between UK’s rich and poor | Inequality | The Guardian

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