Can 'HAPI zones' solve Britain's health crisis?

Government-backed report calls for more parks and swimming pools in poor towns to improve UK population's well-being

An ambulance on Westminster Bridge in London. A government-backed report has called for HAPI zones to be created to help tackle the UK's health crisis. AP

Britain plans to set up several “HAPI zones” to fix its sickness crisis in which 900,000 workers have been lost to the economy, putting the National Health Service under severe threat, a report has found.

It is hoped the Health and Prosperity Improvement (HAPI) zones will boost the economy as with more than 2.8 million people off sick on the average working day the country was losing out on greater productivity and tax revenue, said the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) report.

Its lead author has told The National that more worryingly Britain's “atrocious” ill-health was prevalent not only among the over-60s but affected all age groups including large numbers of children suffering from obesity.

In a report endorsed by Health Secretary Wes Streeting, the IPPR said there was now an opportunity of “kick-starting a once-in-a-generation rethink of national health policy” to revitalise well-being and the economy.

It comes as part of the final report of the IPPR’s Commission on Health and Prosperity, chaired by Lord Darzi – who recently led a hard-hitting review into the state of the NHS for the government – alongside England’s former chief medical officer, Prof Dame Sally Davies.

Lord Darzi's wide-ranging review, published last week, concluded the NHS was “in serious trouble” and prompted Labour to pledge widespread reform of the health service.

HAPI towns

That reform includes the creation of HAPI areas modelled on urban “clean-air zones”, with a national investment plan to rebuild localised health infrastructure, including swimming pools and parks in the poorest towns.

Britain has yet to fully recover from the Covid-19 pandemic, which has pushed the daily number of those off work sick to 2.8 million, but unless drastic steps are taken this could reach 4.3 million in five years, the report said.

“First and foremost, the UK is doing fairly atrociously when it comes to health compared to other countries,” said Chris Thomas, the IPPR’s expert on health and prosperity. “People of all ages are getting sicker than they need to, which is a big economic problem.”

That economic backlash has led to 900,000 people missing from the workforce, leading to an estimated £5 billion ($6.6 billion) in lost tax receipts, the report said. Furthermore, better population health could save the NHS £18 billion a year by the mid-2030s, it added.

“Health is really important to the economy and the nature of our health crisis is undermining everything from wages, to the labour market to growth,” said Mr Thomas.

The proposed remedy is to move from a reactive health service to a proactive system that created “good health in all realms of life”, from schools to work and home. The chief goal is to add 10 years to Britain’s current life expectancy of 80 by 2055.

But before then Britain has to address immediate health concerns, particularly for those under 60. “If we don't put the brakes on this, then the challenge will get much bigger,” said Mr Thomas.

The biggest causes of death were nutrition and obesity, as well as pollution and the poor standard of private rented housing, which were all putting the NHS under great pressure.

Mr Thomas admitted there was some role for private health care to help with sickness levels, including using available beds to take pressure of the NHS. But ultimately it was the NHS that was “the vision for health care in this country”, with the service being cheaper and more effective.

Health polluters

The report also recommended the government go after “health polluters”, such as tobacco and alcohol, as well as unhealthy food companies by imposing new taxes that would raise more than £10 billion a year.

People who have been off sick long-term should be given the “right to try” to return to work with an “ironclad government commitment”, whereby they return to employment without the risk of losing their income support.

Britain’s worsening public health crisis was linked “to our faltering economic performance” with improved well-being as the “most important medicine our economy needs for faster growth”, the report said.

Mr Streeting agreed, saying he wanted to make the health department a place “for economic growth, because we won't build a healthy economy without a healthy society”.

The former Conservative government’s austerity reforms and Covid had “left the UK the literal sick man of Europe”, with life expectancy stagnating and economic inactivity increasing alongside a growing mental health crisis.

The commission also found 1,600 fewer infants would have died between 2020 and 2022, if improvements in child mortality had continued at the same rate as between 2001 and 2015.

Dame Sally Davies, former chief medical officer for England and Wales, said she had “long argued” that better health was Britain's “greatest, untapped resource for happiness, economic growth and national prosperity”.

“This commission has now provided the irrefutable evidence that this is true,” she added.