It is one month into Andy Burnham’s Labour government, and we are already seeing promises of a greater focus on fixing regional inequalities. One clear signal of that intent has been ‘No10 North’ — a government office based in Manchester, where the prime minister will work one day per week. He has described ‘No10 North’ as “the place we use to get power out of Westminster, into the hands of people at a local level”.
Another development points the same way with ‘DHSC North’, a branch of the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) that is now based in Leeds at the request of the new health secretary, Yvette Cooper.
There is already a DHSC office in Leeds, but a spokesperson for the department told The Pharmaceutical Journal on 30 July 2026 that DHSC North builds on this existing base and “will help bring decision-making closer to the communities we serve and strengthen our ability to improve health outcomes across the country”.
The link between geography and health has been documented for decades and closing that gap has eluded successive governments
The DHSC spokesperson said that the department hopes this refocus to the north of England — described as part of wider government plans to decentralise decision-making — will mean that health policy development is better informed by communities across England, including those with the greatest health challenges.
This endeavour is long overdue. It’s no secret that where you live influences your health and even how long you might live. The link between geography and health has been documented for decades and closing that gap has eluded successive governments.
Most recently, data published by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) in February 2026 noted a “clear geographical divide” in healthy life expectancy (HLE). “HLE at birth was highest in southern regions and lowest in northern regions, with a similar pattern for both sexes,” the ONS said.
According to the data, the north-east of England had the lowest HLE at 57 years for males and 59.6 years for females, compared with the south-west of England, which had the highest HLE at 64.4 years for males and 66 years for females.
In their own analysis of the ONS data, the King’s Fund said that in the least deprived 10% of areas in England, males could expect to live about 10 years longer than males in the 10% most deprived areas. For females, the difference in life expectancy was 8 years.
The King’s Fund concluded: “The government’s goal to increase HLE for everyone in England and halve the gap between the richest and poorest regions looks unrealistic.”
“Achieving these goals would require improvements in population health on a scale not seen in recent decades,” it added.
Sustainable funding needs to be at the heart of promised contract reform for community pharmacy in England
The pharmacy sector is only too aware of these regional health inequalities. The ‘positive pharmacy care law’, which traditionally meant more pharmacies in areas of higher deprivation than in areas of lower deprivation, has taken a battering in recent years. Research published in 2025 showed that pharmacy closures, while a national problem, were hitting more deprived areas harder.
The National Pharmacy Association (NPA) emphasised this point in a letter sent to then health secretary Wes Streeting in February 2026, which said that community pharmacy closures “have already disproportionately affected patients in deprived communities with high health needs and those in isolated rural communities, people that really need the services we provide”.
Separately, the results of an analysis published by the NPA in October 2025 showed that deprived council areas, including in Liverpool, Blackpool, York and Wakefield, West Yorkshire, had been the hardest hit by closures since 2022.
Sustainable funding needs to be at the heart of promised contract reform for community pharmacy in England. The oft called for funding is vital for the wellbeing of pharmacy owners, staff and the stability of the sector, but it is also an essential part of real change when it comes to narrowing regional inequalities in healthcare. We cannot continue with a situation where the most economically vulnerable people in society are faced with ever-shrinking access to what is so often described as ‘the front door of the NHS’.
There will be no quick fix to decades of regional health inequality, but patients need a government that sets measurable goals
The ten-year health plan for England described health inequalities — whether they stem from socioeconomic factors, ethnicity or geography — as an “intolerable injustice”.
But health, of course, doesn’t exist in isolation. As the ten-year health plan also notes, it is impacted by matters including housing, employment and availability of healthy food, stating that “the injustice is that the social determinants of ill health cluster in more deprived parts of the country”. Burnham’s move to bring the whole of government — not just DHSC civil servants in a branch office in Leeds — up north is a reassuring step towards rectifying that injustice.
To remedy this, neighbourhood health centres were billed in the plan as a way to “improve people’s access, experience and outcomes, and ensure the sustainability of health and social care delivery”, and have the potential to further tailor care to local population needs.
The first 27 neighbourhood health centres, which will open by 2027, will be in areas of England most affected by deprivation. Amandeep Doll, director for England at the Royal College of Pharmacy, said: “To make this work, pharmacy must be supported as an equal partner from the outset with sustainable funding, investment in the workforce and training, including for pharmacist prescribers, and the right digital infrastructure needed for integrated care.”
There will be no quick fix to decades of regional health inequality, but patients need a government that sets measurable goals, together with detailed plans for pharmacy involvement and sustainable funding for the sector.
Pharmacy teams see the reality of regional health inequities every day. Listen to them. They know what to do and are already working on it. Give them the tools — and the resources — to do it for the long term. PJ
