The right to health
Health is a universal human right.
What is The right to health?
Achieving the 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.
right to health report & toolkit
The right to health is being eroded across the UK. In the UK, health inequalities continue to widen, and health injustice is pervasive. To start to address this situation, the right to health needs to be at the centre of health legislation, regulation, policy and governance.
It is time for everyone in the UK to enjoy quality healthcare, access to adequate living and working conditions, and a healthy environment, not as a privilege but as a right.
Please read the report and our toolkit which serve as a guide for civil society organisations to use the right to health framework in their work.
You can read our key messages on the right to health campaign here.
The problem
However, the reality for people across the UK is very far from this ideal. For example, for the first time in 100 years, life expectancy has failed to increase in England, and it has declined for the poorest 10 per cent of women. At the same time, due to creeping privatisation and underfunding of the National Health Service, people across the four UK nations and jurisdictions struggle to receive medical treatment.
This situation is unacceptable.
It is even more unacceptable when the UK has ratified the International Convention on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR), which protects the right to health under article 12.
It’s time for change, and we need to act.
Our campaign
Change will not happen overnight. Nor if we work in silos. This is why we have launched a 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.
Latest campaign news
- Over April 2025, we hosted a series of trainings on campaigning for the right to health, including one in-person in Bristol, in partnership with Black South West Network.
- In May 2025, we launched ‘The right to health in the UK – a toolkit for civil society organisations and activists.’
- In March 2025, we published an article on the right to health in the Conference Bulletin of Resolve Poverty’s Annual Conference.
- In February 2025, we contributed to the webinar “Climate Change and Health”
- In January 2025, we organised a civil society consultation on the 10-year health plan for NHS England, and contributed to the call for input.
- In December 2024, we published our right to health in the UK report.
Our covid-19 work
The Covid–19 pandemic laid bare the historic and structural inequalities that already existed between us. The Covid-19 pandemic also revealed to us what we truly value: being with our families and friends, the institutions and services that express our care for each other, the invaluable role of essential workers whose contribution for too long has gone unrecognised and unrewarded, our communities and the environment that we must all protect.
Find out more about our work to build a better society here.