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The North of England’s economy was hit harder than the rest of the country during the COVID-19 pandemic with inequalities between the North and the rest of the country exacerbated, according to a report co-produced by the NIHR ARC North East and North Cumbria.

The Northern Health Science Alliance, NIHR Applied Research Collaborations (North East and North Cumbria, Greater Manchester, North West Coast, Yorkshire and Humber), and the NIHR School of Public Health Research report COVID-19 and the Northern Powerhouse: Tackling Health Inequalities for UK Health and Productivity looks at the impact of COVID-19 on the health and economic inequalities between the Northern Powerhouse and the rest of England.

It found the pandemic hit the North harder and more deeply and that mitigating measures must be put in place to stop inequalities rising further and faster.

The report conservatively estimates the economic cost of the increased mortality in the North during the pandemic at £6.86bn and the reductions in mental health in the region due to the pandemic at around £5bn a year.

‘Health and wealth’

Professor Clare Bambra, Professor of Public Health, Newcastle University and Inequalities and Marginalised Communities Lead for the NIHR Applied Research Collaboration (ARC) for the North East and North Cumbria, said: “Our report highlights that we were not all in the pandemic together, with the Northern regions being hardest hit. Health and wealth in the Northern Powerhouse lagged behind the rest of the country even before the COVID pandemic, and significant regional inequalities have been exacerbated.

“We need to significantly ‘level up’ the country by providing immediate additional support to local authorities and devolved administrations in the North – and by investing further in public health prevention in the Northern Powerhouse. In this way, we can reduce the inequalities that the pandemic has highlighted and ensure that our regions are better equipped for building back better.”

The increased mortality rates in the Northern Powerhouse remains significant even after accounting for deprivation, ethnicity and the age-structure of the population. Figures show austerity simultaneously put the region in a more vulnerable position by reducing health and wellbeing, and cost the UK around £2bn a year in lost productivity, with over £16bn lost since 2011.

Statistics which highlight a North/South divide

The report, led by NIHR ARC researchers from Newcastle University, the University of Manchester, University of York and University of Liverpool, found:

• An extra 57.7 more people per 100,000 died in the ‘Northern Powerhouse’ region than the rest of England between March and July 2020 and this could cost the UK economy an additional £6.86bn in reduced productivity
• Mental and financial wellbeing was hardest hit in the Northern Powerhouse, as was loneliness
• Reductions in mental wellbeing in the Northern Powerhouse could cost the UK economy up to £5 billion in reduced productivity
• Austerity disproportionately affected the Northern Powerhouse, particularly areas of high deprivation which led to reduced productivity
• Reductions in the core spending power of local authorities in the Northern Powerhouse by £1 per-head cost £3.17 per-head in lost productivity, equivalent to around a £2bn loss in GDP per-year, or £16bn between 2011 and 2018
• Pre-pandemic child health, a key predictor of life-long health and economic productivity, was poor and deteriorating in the Northern Powerhouse. Since the pandemic, adverse trends in poverty, education, employment and mental health for children and young people have been exacerbated
• Economic outcomes, particularly unemployment rates, were hardest hit in the Northern Powerhouse.

Across the board these estimates are likely to be conservative as the North of England has been hardest hit during the second wave of the pandemic and these modelling exercises were concerned around outcomes from the first wave.

Hannah Davies, Health Inequalities lead for the Northern Health Science Alliance, said: “Health inequalities between the North and the rest of England have been growing for over a decade. This report demonstrates the impact that has had on the productivity of the region and how it has led COVID-19 to take a devastating grip on the North.

“We call on the Government to follow the recommendations of the report to put mitigating measures in place, to support public health measures, reduce child poverty, tackle mental health to support North through the pandemic and allow its ambition of levelling up to become an achievable reality.”

Recommendations

The report authors make a series of recommendations to stop further deteriorations in the level of inequalities, including:

• Increase NHS and local authority resources and service provision for mental health in the Northern Powerhouse. Invest in research into mental health interventions in the North
• Provide additional resource to local authorities and the NHS in the Northern Powerhouse by increasing the existing NHS health inequalities weighting within the NHS funding formula in its reset and restore plans.
• Deliver a £1 billion fund ring-fenced to tackle health inequalities at a regional level and increase local authority public health funding to address the higher levels of deprivation and public health need in the North.
• Create northern ‘Health for Life’ centres offering a life-long programme of health and wellbeing advice and support services from pre-natal to healthy ageing programmes. Targeted to the most deprived areas in the North, they will take a preventative approach to health directly into the communities which need it most.
• Deliver health and mental health promotion interventions together with industry and employers, targeted at employee mental and physical health.
• Level up investment in health R&D in the North of England to create high value jobs and support local health and drive the economy.
• Recommit to ending child poverty.
• Develop a national strategy for action on the social determinants of health with the aim of reducing inequalities in health, with a key focus on children.

You can read the full NHSA press release here

Read and download the full report here

The report was released in November 2020. This news item was first released in November 2020 and was updated in March 2023.