Health is a human right. This means that everyone has a right to access healthcare throughout their life, regardless of factors such as how much they earn, where they live, their age, or their gender. Everyone also has a right to healthy living and working conditions.
However, the reality for people across the UK is far from this ideal.
So, today, we are launching our new right to health campaign.
Health inequalities are widening
In the UK, people’s health and well-being varies on the basis of factors such as income, gender, place of residence or education level. This creates wide health inequalities, in all four parts of the UK.
For example, in England, life expectancy for the poorest 10 per cent of women has declined, people living in poorer areas of Scotland are more likely to die earlier or have more years of ill health and the Covid-19 pandemic had a hugely unequal impact on people’s health across the UK.
A public healthcare system starved of resources
Budget cuts to healthcare and the creeping privatisation of the UK’s National Health Service (NHS) further exacerbate the situation. Due to budget cuts, the NHS has been left without enough healthcare workers, insufficient equipment, and outdated buildings. At the same time, public funding has been diverted to private providers, increasing healthcare access inequalities.
In April 2024, almost 7.57 million individuals were waiting for NHS treatment in England. In Scotland, as of March 2024, there were 690,000 waits for appointments or treatment for non-urgent care.
Combined with other factors, the crisis in public healthcare services contributes to worsening public health outcomes. For example, as of 2023, cancer mortality rates in the UK are significantly higher than the average in OECD countries.
What is even more concerning is that most of health problems in the UK can be eased or prevented. For example, in 2022 respectively, almost 22 per cent of total deaths in England and Wales were treatable or preventable given timely healthcare and public health interventions.
What does the right to health mean?
Achieving a right to health is about creating a world where everyone can access quality healthcare throughout their life, regardless of where they live, how much they earn, their gender, age, or ethnicity. It is also about people enjoying universal access to a range of factors that improve physical and mental health, like adequate housing, sufficient and nutritious food, green spaces, equitable working conditions, healthy relationships and a healthy environment.
International law makes these demands a legal obligation. In 1976, the UK ratified the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR), whose article 12 enshrines the right to health.
However, for the right to health to make a difference in people’s everyday lives, many challenges lie ahead, and we need to improve the protection of health rights in UK domestic legislation.
Our new campaign on the right to health
Change will not happen overnight. Nor if we work in silos. This is why we are launching a new UK-wide campaign on the right to health to push for change so people can enjoy quality healthcare, access to adequate living and working conditions, as well as a healthy environment.
We invite civil society organisations, individuals, academics, patients’ associations, healthcare workers, and trade unions to join us in this campaign.
To kick off,
- We’re holding an introductory right to health training and discussion session on Monday 30 September 16:00 and 17:30.
- We’ve launched a new right to health group open to anyone interested in working on health rights across the UK. This network is a sub-group of the UK ESCR Network.
